This is an unusual book in honour of an unusual person. Fifty-five jurists, none of them Italian, have contributed to a festschrift in honour of Guido Alpa—law professor at the La Sapienza University of Rome, practising lawyer, and President of the Consiglio Nazionale Forense (the Italian Bar Association)—on his 60th birthday. These fifty-five persons (add three authors of forewords and one editor who has not contributed an article and you have fifty-nine) are only a selection of Guido Alpa's colleagues throughout the world, each and every one of whom has the impression of being counted amongst his close friends when welcomed by him. Had Italian academics and practitioners been allowed to contribute as well the result would obviously have been a multi-volume hommage. Guido Alpa is an immensely productive author with books and articles covering a wide range of topics within private law, legal history, consumer law, comparative law, business law, legal practice, etc. This wide field of interest and his international orientation are mirrored in the wide variety of articles in this book, written in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. The articles appear alphabetically by author name, but it is possible to discern some patterns, inspired as the contributions are by some of Guido Alpa's main fields of work. It is not feasible to deal with each contribution, but an idea should be given of the variety of topics and authors. Several articles concentrate on family law, including discussion of new and old family patterns (Encarna Roca, Viviana Kluger), the law of succession (Marcos M Córdoba), and the law of persons (Silvia Diaz Alabart). In a more materialistic league, a handful of articles deal with corporate, business and finance law (Kern Alexander, Mads Andenas, Iris H-Y Chiu, Claude Ducouloux-Favard, Lars Gorton, Klaus J Hopt), including a historical survey (Ross Cranston). Guido Alpa has played an important role in shaping Italian consumer law, and it is proper that several authors deal with this topic (Alicia de León Arce, Santiago Cavanillas Múgica, António Pinto Monteiro, Bernd Stauder, Gustavo Tepedino, Stephen Weatherill); a contribution on electronic contracts (Yves Poullet) belongs mainly to this group as well. Legal practice is a natural choice of topic in a book for Guido Alpa (Mark Freedland, H Patrick Glenn, Guy Horsmans, Erik Werlauff). Further, there are articles concerning aspects of EC law (David J Gerber, K D Kerameus, Norbert Reich, Dominick Vetri, Tony Weir), constitutional guarantees (Dawn Oliver), damages and misfeasance in public bodies (Duncan Fairgrieve), on justice (Sir Basil Markesinis) and on ‘international homestead’ (Alvaro Villaça Azevedo).

The most comprehensive single group consists of articles relating in one way or other to the discussion on harmonisation of European private law, an area in which Guido Alpa has had a substantive influence (Jürgen Basedow, Hugh Beale, Hugh Collins, Bénédicte Fauvarque-Cosson, Martijn W Hesselink, Ole Lando, Hector MacQueen, Ewan McKendrick, Hans-W Micklitz, J Michael Rainer, Jerzy Rajski). In the same line are articles on the Code Civil in general and the French reform project in particular (Guy Canivet, Marcel Fontaine, Ewoud Hondius, Denis Mazeaud, Horatia Muir Watt, Filippo Ranieri, Stefan Vogenauer), and on general comparative law (Alfredo Mordechai Rabello, Pablo Lerner, Camille Jauffret-Spinosi, Simon Whittaker) and contract law (Attilio Aníbal Alterini, Jacques Ghestin).

The concise overview given above should be sufficient to show that this is a volume of excellent academic quality and at the same time presents a cross section of current discourse in European law. And that is just how it should be in a festschrift for Guido Alpa.