Published by The Laureate Press London (1980, viii and 290 pp.)

The Law of International Trade, although it contains the basis and continues to sustain the development of much of our Commercial Law, and particularly of our Law of Contract, has curiously failed to inspire the amount of considered attention which, from its importance, might reasonably be expected. The legal literature, albeit in some areas fairly voluminous, has tended to be confined to the statement of settled rules, for reference by practitioners. Seldom has the task been accomplished in a penetrating or stimulating manner, the principal exception being in the international trade chapters of Benjamin’s Sale of Goods. It is, therefore, in some degree heartening to note an increase of interest in this area of late on the part of teachers and publishers, and it is particularly pleasant to acknowledge the efforts made by an unfamiliar publisher in this area.

The boundaries of a subject such as International Trade are not fixed and depend, in any particular case, on the selection which the individual chooses to make from the diverse subject-matter before him. The topics selected by Mr Hoyle are international sales of goods, their financing (principally bankers’ commercial credits and bills of exchange), carriage of goods (by sea, air, road and rail), marine insurance, conflict of laws and arbitration. Naturally, not all subjects receive the same degree of treatment in each book. In particular, he has seen fit to recognise the increase in International Trade Fraud by devoting a separate chapter to it in his textbook with suggestions on how to prevent it, after a brief outline of how it is perpetrated.

The reviewer would have welcomed a clearer statement of the writer’s objects with each book. He states that the Cases and Materials are to fill a gap in the material available—but for whom? One might suppose, from his being a lecturer at the Inns