This anthology of essays in the “new” legal history contains a dozen pieces on a variety of topics: family settlements, sales transactions, debts in the County Courts, legislative divorce, the legal profession and Special Courts each feature in one or more papers.

There is also a lengthy introduction by the editors explaining the shortcomings of the older style of legal historiography and surveying the progress of the new. The older style, they claim, was marked by concentration on earlier periods at the expense of later and on common law at the expense of statute; but its main defect was a narrowly doctrinal and uncritical approach that did not, except in the most general terms, attempt to relate legal development to economic, intellectual or social history. It is this that the new history seeks to do, and the survey concentrates particularly on what has been achieved in work on the history of civil law. It reveals a wide range of pieces, from those as well known as Atiyah’s Rise and Fall of Freedom of Contract through essays on the slave trade to one on vagrancy in mid-19th century Wales. For the reference seeker, the footnotes are a goldmine: 448 of them covering 63 pages at the end of the essay. Even more valuably, the editors discuss the major themes that have emerged—for instance, the role of the law of property and of credit in relation to economic development; the ideological role of law and its use as a legitimating device; the relationship between law, State and the dominant economic class—and pinpoint some of the pitfalls of an oversimplified approach. For instance, Horwitz in his Transformation of American Law claims that in the 19th century the courts succeeded in creating the conditions necessary for economic growth by manipulating legal doctrine. The editors regard this as over-simple functionalism, which merely assumes “that law was essential to certain social and economic ends; and/or that law mirrored either the needs of dominant classes or a general consensus … the connections between law and economy may be much more complex, contradictory and double edged than these generalizations allow”. For instance, they point out that in the 19th century the representative firm in most industrial trades was the private partnership, although until the end of the century the law of partnership was “obtuse and labyrinthine”. Similarly, they quote Simpson: “If … the rule in Hadley v. Baxendale (1854) is … peculiarly suited to mid-nineteenth century industrial capitalism, what was it doing in Orleans in the 1760’s?”

This sample illustrates the difficult and important points raised in the Introduction, which should be read by all legal historians even if they do not accept each of its criticisms. The more casual reader may be forgiven if (s)he turns quickly to the essays themselves. These are much more accessible and most should prove very stimulating to anyone interested in the role of law in society whether in the past or merely in the present. For example, Ferguson’s study of the impact (or lack of it) of statutory requirements of formality in the sale of bank shares on the Stock Exchange and of goods on various exchanges in Liverpool, London and Manchester seems to provide