Volume one covers the introductory material - the historical roots and foundations of private law, the concept and forces of its transnationalisation in the professional sphere, the autonomous sources of the new law merchant or modern lex mercatoria and its largely finance-driven impulses.


All three volumes may be purchased separately or as a single three volume boxed set.

From the reviews of previous editions:
"...synthesizes and integrates diverse bodies of law into a coherent and accessible account...remarkable in its scope and depth. It stands alone in its field not only due to its comprehensive coverage, but also its original methodology. Although it appears to be a weighty tome, in fact, in light of its scope, it is very concise. While providing a wealth of intensely practical information, its heart is highly conceptual and very ambitious...likely to become a classic text in its field."
American Journal of Comparative Law
"Dalhuisen's style is relaxed...what he writes convinces without the need for an excess of references to sources...a highly valuable contribution to the legal literature. It adopts a useful, modern approach to teaching the young generation of lawyers how to deal with the increasing internationalisation of law. It is also helpful to the practising lawyer and to legislators."
Uniform Law Review/Revue de Droit Uniforme
"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
"...presents a very different case: that of a civilized and cultivated cosmopolitan legal scholar, with a keen sense of international commercial and financial practice, with an in-depth grounding in both comparative legal history and comparative law, combined with the ability to transcend conventional English black-letter law description with critical judgment towards institutional wisdom and intellectual fashions. ...a wide-ranging, historically and comparatively very deep and comprehensive commentary, but which is also very contemporary and forward-looking on many or most of the issues relevant in modern transnational commercial, contract and financial transactions..."
International and Comparative Law Quarterly