Warren Swain

Contract Law: Principles and Context presents the development of contract law through a considered selection of cases that are both authoritative and used as factual examples to explain the law. The text introduces readers to the nature and range of contracts, the process for making a contract, rights and duties, adjustments to contracts, vitiating factors and unfair conduct, ending contracts, and remedies and restitution. The text considers the historical development of contracts through case law and legislation, then takes the reader to particular issues with contracts as they might arise in real life and navigates a legal pathway through them. Written in a clear and engaging style, Contract Law provides a fresh, topical and accessible account of the Australian law of contract, and is an invaluable resource for contract law students and practitioners.

The foundations for modern contract law were laid between 1670 and 1870. Rather than advancing a purely chronological account, this examination of the development of contract law doctrine in England during that time explores key themes in order to better understand the drivers of legal change. These themes include the relationship between lawyers and merchants, the role of equity, the place of statute, and the part played by legal literature. Developments are considered in the context of the legal system of the time and through those who were involved in litigation as lawyers, judges, jurors or litigants. It concludes that the way in which contract law developed was complex. Legal change was often uneven and slow, and some of the apparent changes had deep roots in the past. Clashes between conservative and more reformist tendencies were not uncommon.