The ongoing debate on the harmonisation of European contract law has metamorphosed into an important recognition: that none of the existing national systems of contract law, even the most modern, have been able to keep pace with the extensive and radical changes in the world which contract law must reflect. The nineteen outstanding contributors to this deeply insightful book concur in envisioning a fundamentally new systematic concept of contract law that, while preserving the essential architecture of the existing European codes, would nonetheless find cogent ways to integrate such modern developments as mass transactions, chains and networks of contracts, regulation of markets and contracts to protect consumers, and service and long-term contracts into an optional European code.