Introduction : the life of contract -- Contract as promise -- Promise -- The moral obligation of promise -- What a promise is worth -- Remedies in and around the promise -- Consideration -- Answering a promise : offer and acceptance -- Promises and vows -- Acceptance and the law of third-party beneficiaries -- The simple circuitry of offer and acceptance -- Rejections, counteroffers, contracts at a distance, crossed offers -- Reliance on an offer -- Gaps -- Mistake, frustration, and impossibility -- Letting the loss lie where it falls -- Parallels with general legal theory : an excursion -- Filling the gaps -- Good faith -- "Honesty in Fact" -- Good faith in performance -- Duress and unconscionability -- Duress -- Coercion and rights -- Property -- Hard bargains -- Unconscionability, economic duress, and social justice -- Bad samaritans -- The importance of being right -- You can always get your money back -- Conditions -- Waivers, forfeitures, repudiations -- Contract as promise in the light of subsequent scholarship--especially law and economics.