Elements of Engineering Electromagnetics

Rao covers several advanced topics in a simple tutorial manner. Of course, if one is looking at E & M for the first time, his condensed style of the more elementary topics may not be as appreciated as if one is looking at E & M for the second (or third) time. However, Rao does cover most of the traditional first E & M course topics in an understandable way. In my opinion, where he excels is in taking more difficult but very useful topics that are unusual in an elementary course and presenting them in an understandable way, such as using the method-of-moments to calculate fringing fields of a capacitor, or outlining the basics of the finite element method, or calculating quasistatic expansions of distributed structures so they can be modeled as lumped element circuits, thereby illustrating the transition (as well as the frequency limitations) of the zero-dimensional circuit approach to the fields approach. If you are taking E & M for the first time, this book may be a bit more difficult than many out there, but if you familiarize yourself with it, I believe you will wind up using it even when your course is over to help you answer some real life problems. Below are the chapter headings for the sixth edition from the publisher's website. I have owned the second and fifth edition, and they were really not very different. I. ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS FOR ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING. 1. Vectors and Fields. 2. Maxwell's Equations in Integral Forms. 3. Maxwell's Equations in Differential Form and Uniform Plane Waves in Free Space. 4. Fields and Waves in Material Media. 5. Electromagnetic Potentials and Topics for Devices, Circuits, and Systems. 6. Transmission-Line Essentials for Digital Electronics. II. ESSENTIAL/ELECTIVE ELEMENTS. 7. Transmission Lines for Communications. 8. Guided Wave Principles for Electronics and Optoelectronics. 9. Several Topics for Electronics and Photonics. 10. Principles of Radiation and Antennas. 11. Several Solution Techniques.

The previous reviewer says this is a PhD / Masters level book, and I thought it pertinent to point out that Prof. Rao, our director of undergrad education in ECE @ UIUC, wrote this book for our sophomore-level electromag course. After some basic calc and physics, this is what we take, and frankly, I think it's a semi-decent book on a relatively easy topic. If you had a decent physics electromagnetics course, this book should be your companion for the rest of your undergrad work in this area.

I do not subscribe to the view that this book is unreadable, almost useless etc.This is a good book, in fact it is an excellent book. It is just that the subject itself is quite high in complexity that makes people hate this and/or any other text on the same subject.This book is not for beginners though. Certainly not. And it is best used over a two-semester course.For beginners, Basic Electromagnetics with Applications by the same author will be useful.