This is a big book, with big themes and an author with the necessary experience to back them up. - Law Quarterly Review (review of the 1st edition)Volume 1 of this new edition covers the roots and foundations of private law, the different origins, structure and orientation of civil and common law, and the social and cultural forces behind it. It analyses the practical needs and market forces behind the emergence of a new transnational commercial and financial legal order, its international finance-driven impulses, concepts, and operation; the theoretical basis of the transnationalisation of the law in the professional sphere in that order; and the autonomous sources of the new law merchant or modern lex mercatoria derived from the method of public international law, as well as its relationship to domestic and transnational public policy and public order requirements.This magisterial work is made up of six volumes. Used independently, each volume allows the reader to delve into a particular topic. Alternatively, all volumes can be read together for a comprehensive overview of transnational comparative commercial, financial and trade law.