This volume revisits some of the key debates about the nature and shape of contract law, in light of the impact that statutes have had on its development. With contributions from leading contract law scholars, it fills a significant gap in existing theoretical and doctrinal analyses of contract law, which rely primarily on cases to put forward accounts of the general principles and structure of contract law.

Statutory rules are, typically, seen as being specific instances of legal regulation that carve out exceptions to these general principles for specific reasons of policy. This treatment of these rules has resulted in an incomplete understanding of the nature of contract law and the principles that underpin it. By drawing specifically on contract statutes, the volume produces a more complete picture of modern contract law. A companion to the ground-breaking Tort Law and the Legislature: Common Law, Statute and the Dynamics of Legal Change (Hart Publishing, 2012) this collection will have a significant impact on the study of contract law.

Read this book! Each of the chapters in this volume are welcome additions to the literature … This review cannot do justice to the wide learning that is displayed in the complete collection. Buy the book and enjoy each and every one of the essays. -- Donald Robertson, University of Sydney Law School * Journal of Contract Law *
It is enormously helpful to have a volume dedicated to this subject … this work is the first extensive examination of the relationship between contract law and the legislature. -- Lorna MacFarlane, Dentons UK & Middle East LLP * Edinburgh Law Review *

TT Arvind and Jenny Steele are members of the School of Law at the University of York.