In the age of Europe this book is an interesting departure from the traditional contract textbook. The author’s purpose was to promote “the ideal of European unity” by meeting the “need for greater awareness and understanding of one another’s ways of living and ways of thought” with a book which has as its object “a straightforward explanation of the basic principles of English commercial contract law, and at the same time to provide for English lawyers what may well be their first insight into Continental rules”. The book commences with a potted guide to the English legal system and then examines its subject proper. This is arranged around a traditional doctrinal scheme starting with intention and certainty, proceeding via the familiar headings of offer, acceptance, consideration etc., and ending with remedies. The novelty and, for this reviewer the interest, of the book lay in the appendices at the end of each chapter, contributed by specialist authors, which digest the main points of comparison and contrast between the English law and that of our European partners. In these sections Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian and Spanish law are considered.

The sections on English contract law comprise the bulk of the book. Nevertheless, the