The title of this book is somewhat cryptic. It suggests any or all of a number of topics. It could refer to a general or technical account of modes of marine transport. But it does not. It embraces a far wider and much more ambitious undertaking—a conscientious and detailed attempt to describe, as its sub-title informs, the evolution of international marine policy and shipping law, from the beginning of time until the present day. It is thus in many ways essentially a law book, but a book which is designed to demonstrate the development of international and national marine law from historical, economic, political and social viewpoints. It has a major theme—an examination of the divergence and relationship between the public and private parts of marine law (a non-technical expression used here for convenience to incorporate both the public international law of the sea and also the admiralty/maritime and commercial fields of shipping law).

If the author had simply set out to narrate, without comment, the evolution of marine law, he could content himself with a creditable achievement. He has essayed a detailed and thorough review of the major factors and events which have contributed to the shaping of legal developments over the centuries, paying particular attention to the working in more recent times of private and public bodies such as the United Nations Law of the Sea Conferences and the Comité Maritime International. The breadth of his subject makes his coverage to some extent brief on particular points. But he is not a man to waste words. His text requires careful reading and provides as good an introduction to the whole of marine law as one could wish. No great originality is shown in his research—indeed he not infrequently quotes interesting and informative passages from secondary sources. But this is understandable in the light of the volume of material which he has covered and the clearly enormous effort that has gone into the book.

Perhaps the author has not been quite so successful in his comment on the tension, or lack of it, between public and private interests in the use of the sea and the applicable law. He continually regrets the divergent development of the public and private law areas without always clearly defining the component parts of each area or the ways in which they could or should develop together. Might some matters not more