Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction / Pier Giuseppe Monateri -- Theories of contract law / Brian H. BIx -- In defense of Roman contract law / James Gordley -- The authoritarian theory of contract / Pier Giuseppe Monateri -- Contract and the comparatist : should we think about contract in terms of 'contracticles'? / Geoffrey Samuel -- Critical comparative contract law / Giovanni Marini -- Contract law and regulation / Giuseppe Bellantuono -- Enforcing bilateral promises : a comparative law and economics perspective / Francesco Parisi, Marta Cenini and Barbara Luppi -- Spontaneous order and freedom of contract -- Carlo Ludovico Cordasco -- 'Party autonomy' / Horatia Muir Watt -- Who is th contracting party? A trip around the transformation of the legal subject / Maria Rosaria Marella -- Freedom of contract and constitutional values : some exceptional cases from the Colombian Constitutional Court / Pablo Moreno Cruz -- The unburiable contract : Grant Gilmore's discontinous parabola and the literary construction of American legal style / Cristina Costantini -- Queering the contractual paradigm between law and political theory / Flavia Monceri -- Constacts in literature : from Doctor Faustus to vampires / Daniela Carpi -- Women and contracts in Angela Carter's postmodern revision of the fairy tale / Sidia Fiorato -- The wrecking ball : good faith, preemption and US exceptionalism / Peter Goodrich -- Technological contracts / Massimiliano Granieri -- Contractual interpretation : the South African blend of common, civil and indigenous law in comparative perspective / Andrew Hutchison -- Promissory estoppel / Paolo Pardolesi -- Party autonomy in global context : an international lawyer's take on the political economy of a self-constituting regime / Horatia Muir Watt.