Southern Cross

This book serves two purposes. First it provides a history of the main institutions of South African private law and second, it explores the process through which the integration of English common law and continental civil law was achieved in that jurisdiction. It is a book aimed at both a European and a South African audience. For European lawyers the experience of the Sotuh African legal system during the past two hundred years provides stimulating lessons for the process of harmonization of private law that is likely to occur within the European Union. For South African readers the principle value of the book is that it allows leading scholars in the field of South African private law to reflect on the history of their subject. It is thus a first stepping stone in the writing of the history of private law in South Africa.