The classic status of Zweigert and Kötz is already assured. The authority of the text, the density of the information it contains and the elegance of Mr Weir’s translation make it both useful and usable. The chief merit of this edition, as of its predecessors, is its handiness and its accuracy as a guidebook to the world’s legal systems. It is the Baedecker of comparative law.

Zweigert and Kötz comes in two equally-sized volumes. The first begins with a discussion of the nature of comparative law but concentrates on a survey of the main features of the major groupings of the world’s legal systems. The second volume focuses on contract, tort and unjust enrichment, as major departments of private law.

As might be expected from a good guide-book this tells one all one needs to know to get around the world’s principal legal systems. It is straightforward enough to direct first-time visitors to what is most important. But its comprehensiveness should keep the more expert traveller interested as well. There is more than enough in the excellent bibliographies appended to each chapter to satisfy anyone’s curiosity. Moreover, like any decent guidebook it is opinionated in the best sense, leaving the reader in no doubt that this is not just an encyclopedia, potted and pruned, but a work of careful scholarship. Indeed, the exposition of black-letter law is enhanced by the theoretical and historical context in which the authors firmly place it. This does not confine its appeal to academics and students, however. The reliability and conciseness of Zweigert and Kötz, as well as its crisp no-nonsense style, make it at home on the practitioner’s desk as well as the scholar’s.

These qualities are present throughout the book, although students of comparative law, as well as practitioners, are likely to have more use for the second, more substantive volume, than the first, more discursive part. Indeed, it is in relation to the first volume that one might register, if not criticism, then at least unease. This concerns its organization, not its quality. It might be wondered, for example, whether we should continue to think in terms of “legal families” at all. For the authors there are five major groupings: the Romanistic, the Germanic, the Anglo-American, the Nordic and the Socialist. Historically, of course, this is both a viable and a useful approach. And the conceptual assumptions of any legal system, upon which understanding it depends, are historical. But the growth of international trade, the internationalization of the world’s market for legal services and the gradual process of legal transplantation between systems are likely to render such groupings practically unhelpful. More importantly perhaps, even those legal systems which began as direct descendants of the French, German or English systems have long since gone their own way. Scholars and practitioners in such countries take a certain pride in their emancipation and are apt to be surprised by any suggestion, however innocent, that they remain legal colonies. In particular, perhaps, it might be wondered whether there is any practical merit in the label “Anglo-American” law, especially in the light of the recent work of Professor Atiyah and Professor Summers (Form and Substance in Anglo-American Law, 1987).

Another worry is that the classification system employed by Zweigert and Kötz is strikingly Euro-centric. Islamic law, for example, is not accorded the status one might expect, being relegated to membership of the category of “other legal families”. The treatment of Japanese law, which is similarly classified, is also puzzling. It is true, as a generalization, that the