Book excerpt: “This is a big book, with big themes and an author with the necessary experience to back them up... Full of insights as to the theories that underlie the rules governing contract, property and security, it is an important contribution to the law of international commerce and finance.” (Law Quarterly Review) Volume 1 of this new edition covers the roots and foundations of private law, the different origins, structure, and orientation of civil and common law, and the social and cultural forces behind it. It analyses the practical needs and market forces behind the emergence of a new transnational commercial and financial legal order, its international finance-driven impulses, concepts, and operation; the theoretical basis of the transnationalisation of the law in the professional sphere in that order; the autonomous sources of the new law merchant or modern lex mercatoria derived from the method of public international law, as well as its relationship to domestic and transnational public policy and public order requirements. The complete set in this magisterial work is made up of 6 volumes. Used independently, each volume allows the reader to delve into a particular topic. Alternatively, all volumes can be read together for a comprehensive overview of transnational comparative commercial, financial and trade law.