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Zusatztext This is a great work of legal history by a quite exceptional scholar. Every legal historian will recognise the magnitude of its achievement. However! it is extraordinarily important that it should not be seen as only legal history. We have never had a better path to thorough understanding of the modern law of obligations in the common law. Every university jurist who teaches all or part of that area of the law must digest the learning of this book. Informationen zum Autor David Ibbetson is a lecturer in law at Oxford University Klappentext The English law of obligations has developed over most of the last millennium without any major discontinuity. Through this period each generation has built on the law of its predecessors, manipulating it so as to avoid its more inconvenient consequences and adapting it piecemeal to social and economic changes. Sometimes fragments borrowed from other jurisdiction have been incorporated into the fabric of English law; from time to time ideas developed elsewhere have, at least temporarily, imposed a measure of structure on a common law otherwise messy and inherently resistant to any stable ordering. In this book David Ibbetson exposes the historical layers beneath the modern rules and principles of contract, tort, and unjust enrichment. Small-scale changes caused by lawyers successfully exploiting procedural advantages in their clients' interest are juxtaposed alongside changes caused by friction along the boundaries of these principal legal categories; fossilized remnants of old doctrines jostle with newer ideas in a state of half-consistent tension; loose-knit rules of equity developed in the Chancery infiltrate themselves into more tightly controlled Common law structures. The result is a system shot through with inconsistencies and illogicalities, but with the resilience to adapt as necessary to take account of shifting pressures and changing circumstances. Zusammenfassung This work traces the history of the English law of obligations from the twelfth century to the present day. It aims to cut through technicalities and to be comprehensible to readers other than specialist legal historians. It should be of interest to all those wanting to understand how the English Common law evolves. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Prologue: The Prehistory of the English Law of Obligations Pervasive Ideas Penalties and Entitlements Wrongs: Dishonour and Loss The Economy of Exchange Oaths: Threats and Promises Contracts and Personal Bonds Obligations in Roman Law Delict Contract Quasi-Contract Quasi-Delict 2 Structural Foundations Liability for Wrongdoing: Damage and Dishonour Glanvill and the Law of Debt Covenant and a Law of Contract 3 Unity and Fragmentation of the Mediaeval Law of Contract The Formalization of Covenant Covenant and the Conditional Bond The Fragmentation of Remedies for Informal Contracts 4 Trespass, Trespass on the Case, and the Mediaeval Law of Tort The Core of Trespass: Forcible Wrongdoing Contractual Misperformance and Non-forcible Wrongs The Origins of Trespass on the Case 5 The Substantive Law of Torts Strict Liability and the Role of Fault The Scope of Trespassory Liability 6 The Substantive Law of Contract Voluntariness, Agreement, and the Formation of Contracts The Boundaries of Contract Expectations, Entitlements, and Liability for Breach of Contract Part 2 The Triumph of Trespass on the Case 7 Tort, Property, and Reputation: the Expansion of the Action on the Case Nuisance Trover and Conversion Tort and Reputation: Defamation 8 The Rise of the Action of Assumpsit Trespass on the Case and Contractual Liability Contract and Tort: the Action of Assumpsit Assumpsit and the Theory of Contract The Formal Structure of Contractual Litigation Part 3 The Mod...