Roger Halson has edited an interesting collection of essays in the series Issues in Law and Society, devoted to the law of contract, or more accurately (as these essays seem to reveal) of contracts. The ostensible theme is the boundaries of contract, but the theme is not very significant except perhaps in the aspirational sense that all good research should be at the frontier of knowledge. More accurate is the editor’s own introduction, which describes the collection as catholic and wide-ranging. It ranges over the public law dimension (Professor Sue Arrowsmith), the European dimension (Professor Hugh Beale), legal theory (Professor Roger Brownsword), the family dimension (Professor Michael Freeman), privity (the editor himself), the employment dimension (Professor Roger Rideout), and a lively account of the business of lending art works (Professor Norman Palmer). At the time of publication four of the authors were members of the Faculty of Laws at University College London, and the collection was no doubt a shop window for the Faculty in the research assessment exercise of that year. Such collections have inherent weaknesses but also hidden strengths. There is a risk that authors invited to contribute will offer something other than their best work; on the other hand, there is an occasional gem which perhaps might not be published through the usual academic journals. The merit of the collection is that for those who find the subject of contracts intrinsically interesting there will inevitably be something, and probably more than one piece, which is worth discovering.

For this reviewer the welcome discoveries were Roger Brownsword’s essay “Static and Dynamic Market Individualism” and Norman Palmer’s “Great Art Living Dangerously”. Professor Brownsword’s work on contract theory (often in collaboration with Professor John Adams) is well-known, as is the identification of what are described as the “principal ideologies” in case law of market- individualism and consumer-welfarism. This essay is perhaps no more than a technical refinement of that work, but one which makes it considerably more convincing by providing a coherent explanation of the way in which the underlying judicial ideology of contracts adjusts to the present practices of the business community, and arguably to prevailing politico-economic thinking. For this reviewer the real gem of the collection is Professor Palmer’s essay on the business of lending art works. It is a fascinating study of the business, rooted in empirical evidence, and drawing the analysis of legal and commercial issues out of the anecdotal accounts of actual instances. One cannot say that there is a major contribution to legal analytical knowledge here, but the contribution to understanding is considerable. There is pleasure to be had in the implicit scepticism of the question: “Should lawyers interfere?” It is tinged with regret at the conclusion that perhaps they should, though there is sound comment on the risks of data banks of standard terms collected into a contract document without thought about the need for “a coherent and co-ordinated whole”. There is also realism in the conclusion that the lending of art works would be more significantly affected by changes in tax regimes than by legal adjustments.

There is not much of immediate utility to practising commercial lawyers here; it is a largely academic collection. But, if an interest in the law of contracts, in understanding it and its