When teaching was in vogue, knowledgeable academics authored books with contents that they believed students should be taught. Authoring a book was also an opportunity for academics to demonstrate their own knowledge and expound on subjects of their interest.

Now that learning is the focus, authors must constantly view every aspect of their book from the viewpoint of the learner. To begin with, why would a student wish to pick up a book to study? What are students’ objectives? What do they need to do to satisfy those objectives? Any material that does not satisfy a need of the student, therefore, does not qualify for being included in the book. The material that does qualify must then come under close scrutiny of the authors. How should the authors present that material so that the students’ learning is facilitated.

In preparing this Book, we have very consciously attempted to sieve the content and determine its presentation so that this Book is truly student centered.

In 1978, Prof. Gulhati had authored a book on Engineering Properties of Soils published by Tata McGraw-Hill. That Book was designed to serve as the textbook for the course on Soil Mechanics, first of the two courses that are core courses in Geotechnical Engineering offered to the Civil Engineering students. It was well received and went through many reprints. In fact, it is still in use, with faculty members and in the libraries, at many places. The initial chapters of this Book are the revised and modified version of the earlier book.

When Engineering Properties of Soils was written, Prof. Gulhati had done so after teaching the first core course for about a decade and a half. Since then, he taught the second core course for as many years. Prof. Datta, the co-author of this Book has been teaching the new electives for some years now besides being a renowned researcher and consultant in these new areas. The Soil Dynamics part of this Book has been prepared by our Guest Author, Dr G.V. Ramana—a very bright young academic who views everything with fresh youthfulness.

This Book is designed to serve as a learning resource for the two core courses on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering. It has material beyond the two core courses as well. Material that the authors believe should now also form a part of the two core courses. In many leading academic institutes, this additional material is already being introduced to students through elective courses on recent developments in this field that is now getting to be known as Geotechnical Engineering. There is no structured learning resource to support these new electives. This Book can serve this need as well. But more than that, this Book can serve as the basis for a revision of the undergraduate core programme.

We are both most grateful to our students who constantly teach us and sensitize us about how best they learn.

SHASHI K. GULHATI
MANOJ DATTA