This book is not, and clearly was not intended to be, a textbook in the traditional sense, on carriage of goods by sea. It is instead a collection of conference papers which were originally presented in Singapore in 1983, although the book was not itself published until 1986. The character of the book is determined by this, and it shares the virtues and shortcomings of a collection of conference papers which is, by now, some five years out of date.

It is certainly not a competitor to the established carriage by sea textbooks. The coverage is too narrow, and in no sense is this an introductory book. On the coverage, for example, there is a strong time charterparty bias, and virtually nothing on voyage or demise charter-parties. There is also little that would be of interest to those involved with tanker charterparties, standard forms considered being mainly NYPE and Baltime, and Julian How’s chapter (see below) clearly has no application at all to tankers. On the intended readership, although the first chapter is an editor’s introduction, it is more in the nature of an outline of the particular topics covered in the book, rather than an introduction to the carriage of goods by sea in general. The book is written for those who are already familiar with the basics of carriage by sea, and it could not be used as an introduction to the subject. Indeed, the Preface makes this clear: it is written for lawyers, shipowners, shippers, marine underwriters and managers of P. & I. Clubs, but not for students, and the editor also states (near the end of the introductory chapter) that it is not possible for nine contributors to cover exhaustively all the issues relating to charterparties and bills of lading. There is also a strong South-East Asia bias, although nearly all the book would be relevant to students and practitioners of U.K. law.

What the book does well is to take topical issues and examine them in greater detail than would be possible in a traditional textbook of similar size (i.e., short). Each topic is dealt with in a small chapter (some 15 pages on average), the individual chapters being written by practitioners and academics who are for the most part very well known. One would expect a range of styles from a number of different authors, but all the chapters are clearly written.

After the editor’s introduction, the areas covered are: “Actions in rem in the Far East”, by M. Karthigesu; “From Carrier to Consignee—The Allocation of Legal Responsibilities”, by Professor Cadwallader; “How Long is a Contract of Carriage”, by Julian How; “Unclean Bills of Lading—Banking Problems and Legal Consequences”, also by Professor Cadwal-