In this appealing Stories offering, the editors are joined by other leading contracts scholars in taking the major cases in contract law -- from Britton v. Turner to Red Owl to Pro-CD to Baby M -- and putting them in their historical and cultural context. This volume brings together a broad array of contracts scholars. Each of the eleven short and readily accessible chapters provides newly uncovered facts about and insights into the cases that lie at the core of the first-year contracts class. Long-standing puzzles are answered (such as the identity of Louise Hamer and why the nephew transferred his claim to her after his uncle died in Hamer v. Sidway and why a bridge to nowhere was built in Luten Bridge). These answers in turn are linked to the larger political and social forces at work, and the way these forces have shaped the evolution of contract law.