This book, Area 6 of the International Library of Essays in Law and Legal Theory, is part of a wider series of some 60 volumes, covering many areas of law, designed to present academic research materials in an accessible form. This particular anthology consists of the reproduction of a series of articles, essays and sections of books on the theme of consumer law, selected on the basis that they present analytical and theoretical insights of broad application. In practice, many of the originals are in fairly accessible journals, although it is still useful to find them in one book.

Although the series is supposed to draw on literature written and published throughout the world, this volume is almost wholly of materials first published in the U.S. or Canada. The exception is one paper which originates in Germany. There is a complete absence of U.K. material. This is not completely surprising as British consumer law academic specialists tend not to be theoreticians and British theoreticians tend not to be consumer experts. Nonetheless, the result is that the viewpoint is a narrowly North American one with most of its