The publication of the second edition of this casebook is an event which will be welcomed by the vast majority of teachers of contract law. Its great strength lies in the breadth of the material which it draws upon and the encouragement which it gives to its readers to think critically about its subject-matter. This is not to suggest that the case-law is inadequately dealt with. It is not. Leading recent cases, such as Williams v. Roffey Bros. and Nicholls (Contractors) Ltd. [1991] 1 Q.B. 1, are fully and competently dealt with. But it is the willingness to go beyond the case-law which marks out this book from its principal competitors and which gives it an added critical dimension.

In a number of respects the second edition represents an improvement upon the first edition (and the authors are to be congratulated upon their willingness to seek out and to act upon the comments of contract teachers on the first edition). The specimen contracts in Chapter 3 can now be read without ruining your eyesight and a number of clauses from actual contracts have been inserted at various points throughout the book to give the reader some practical illustrations of the rules at work and the attempts of contract draftsmen to manipulate the rules to their advantage. The expansion of the notes and comments provided by the authors has made this edition more comprehensive and it will make it much easier to use this work as the principal (or even the only) teaching vehicle on a contract course. The section on contract theory has been considerably expanded by the introduction of a broader