Book Reviews Craig, Paul & de Bùrca, Gràinne, EC Law - Text, Cases & Materials, Oxford: Clarendon Press (1995) cxxvi + 1160 pages + Index. This is the true heir to Stein, Hay and Waelbroeck - the celebrated American casebook long in print when there was no English-speaking Member State in the Community. It is also a sign of the changing climate of legal education in Britain. It is both a law book and a book about the law: a student studying from the Craig and de Bùrca book will emerge with a fine grasp of the positive law and much more: the book is sensitive to history, to economics (not enough), to political process and politics, to the social and physical environment. This is not 'Law and...' it is Law, pure and simple on the understanding that Law is an academic discipline in which history, politics, economics and all the rest form an integral part of the discourse. The distinction thus is not between pure law books and 'Law and ...' books, but between pure law books and 'Law without ...' books. 'Law without ...' is the conceit that there is a meaningful legal discourse which would focus exclusively and self-referentially on formal legal texts. Compare this volume with the yellow tomes coming out of the Europa Institutes in The Netherlands and the Atlantic seems narrower than the North Sea. Two additional features are appealing in this Case and Materials book: frequently, the excerpts are relatively long, giving students and teachers more to chew on than the supposed 'ratio' of a case. Craig and de Bùrca surely understand the purpose of a casebook as a tool of education-through- discussion- and- analysis and not as an ersatz (and inefficient) text book, though they cannot quite commit themselves to that approach in full. If I had my way, I would make a lot more excerpts even longer, drop material whose sole purpose is to cover a discrete point of positive law and rely on an accompanying textbook to take care of 'covering'. 'We Teach Students How to Teach Themselves' should be the motto above every casebook. Everything follows from that. Maybe as the book acquires adherents, as it should and no doubt will, it will be easier to become even bolder in future editions. Second, the notes of the editors are very fine and on occasion real gems - thinking aloud with the students. I often had the impression that the authors were really thinking aloud without being sure about the answer themselves. That is an infectious posture which makes for rich classroom discussion. Weaknesses? It is silly to expect any Community Law book to cover all topics today. But it was a real blunder to come out in the first edition without a comprehensive section on external relations and the Common Commercial Policy - as if constructing an intellectual fortress Europe. If the book is to be adopted widely outside Europe that would have to be remedied fast -maybe before a full new edition comes out. Likewise, a greater sensitivity to the economics of the Single Market, would have surely prevented the strange omission of a serious treatment of public procurement - the last bastion of unadulterated, unashamed, pure and simple State protectionism. All in all, a very considerable achievement. JHHW
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