Ali M. Memari

The reason I have chosen this book is that it is the follow up of a book published in 1970 (Wiegel, R.L. (1970). Earthquake Engineering, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ) that had a great impact on the development of the field of earthquake engineering. The 1970 book, edited by a UC Berkeley Professor, presented the state of knowledge in the field at that time, with contributions by the best experts in the discipline. This recent book, also edited by two UC Berkeley people, follows that same tradition as in the first book and is expected to have a great impact as the chapters are all written by today's best known experts. Another interesting fact about the book is that the second author (Vitelmo V. Bertero) is one of the most influential figures in the field of earthquake engineering. Out of the 29 contributors to this book, 11 of them have been Professor Bertero's former graduate students and research associates.