Making Commercial Law Through Practice, 1830-1970

This book explores the functioning of commercial law within the context of commercial practice over the 140-year period from around 1830 until 1970, with an emphasis on the international dimensions. The focus is transactional, rather than institutional - commodity markets, agency, the trade in manufactured goods and soft" commodities (grain, cotton, tea and so on), and the financing of trade and industry. As a study in law in context it is not a doctrinal history, although there is a considerable amount of doctrine to digest. A key feature of the relevant doctrinal law is that it furnished a broad framework in which commercial parties could make their own rules and regulations and design their own institutions. The upshot was that in this broad sense commercial practice was the source of commercial law"--