ABSTRACT
The law of contract cannot be fully understood without reference to the history of ideas which underpin it. It will become apparent in the course of this book that this branch of the law has undergone several important transformations in the last few decades. Reading cases and statutes will lead to familiarisation with the detail of such changes, but it is unlikely to allow you to gain a full appreciation of how it was possible for them to come about and the wider political context which made transformation acceptable to influential stakeholders. In a book of this kind, it is almost impossible to do justice to the rich spectrum of ideas which have been reflected in debates between academics, politicians and the wider community of users of contract law. Instead, the aim of this chapter and the next is to sketch out some key ideas which have influenced the ways in which we look at contracts. Of particular relevance here is the question of the extent to which the state, in the guise of the legislature and the judiciary, should interfere with contracts made by consenting parties in order to redress imbalances of power between them.
