This is an admirable book of a novel and interesting kind. For a period of three years, a team of 13 French and English scholars worked together on six selected topics in the law of contract, devoting a three-day conference to each. The bulk of the book consists of the two national reports, plus a summary of the discussion, on each of these topics. It is prefaced by a piece by Barry Nicholas, who knows better than anyone else how to present the French law of contract, and ends with conclusions drawn from the whole enterprise by the two editors, who are to be congratulated on their orchestration of so many talented soloists.

The topics selected (not without some retrospective doubts) were “The Binding Nature of Contractual Obligations” (Atiyah/Rouhette), “The Domain of Contract” (Rudden/Jauffret-Spinosi), “The Pre-contractual Obligation to Disclose Information” (Ghestin/Nicholas), “The Effect of Changes in Circumstances on Long-term Contracts” (Bell/de Lamberterie), “Remedies” (Ogus/Tallon) and “The Distribution of Cars: A Complex Contractual Technique” (Beale, Harris & Sharpe/Sayag).

The idea was a good one, and the effort of implementing it is vindicated by the results;