The goal of Langdell’s casebook was to reduce the world of contracts to major underlying principles in a scientific fashion.
The theory of contracts created by Langdell is furthered by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Samuel Williston, which Gilmore calls the Holmes-Williston construct.
The general theory required that, always and everywhere, things remain as they have, in theory, always been.” He illustrates this argument by reference to English case law that had been elevated by the theorists to the status of "rules", in Stilk v Myrick, Dickinson v Dodds and Foakes v Beer, all as a way of ensuring that the doctrine of consideration would preclude the enforceability of a contract.
The requirement of ceremonial trappings such as seals and ribbons gave way to a more reality-based emphasis on consideration as indicia of the parties' intent to contract.
Gilmore finishes the chapter by discussing the reception of the policy of absolute contractual liability in Paradine v Jane into the law of Massachusetts, and the Holmesian theorists’ disdain for the condoning of special damages in Hadley v Baxendale.
The theory of contract as formulated by Holmes and Williston, was disassembled by Benjamin N. Cardozo and Arthur Linton Corbin.
Corbin’s work takes the opposite stance of Holmes, refuting the idea that contract law was external, rather focusing on the “operative facts” of the cases.
Gilmore points to the contradiction of sections as example of the “unspoken cases” as mentioned earlier that didn’t fit the Holmesian model, being presented by Corbin in an un-ignorable fashion.
The move is exemplified by the newfound success of plaintiffs looking to recover for the benefit that they conferred on the defendant, even though they ultimately failed to complete their contractual obligations.
As he states, “In any civilized system the same agreements, provided that they are entered into voluntarily and in good faith, will be enforced - as of course they should be.
The artificial divisions that were used to carve contract theory out of tort a hundred years ago have all but crumbled.
Quite comically, Gilmore suggests that the merging of contracts and torts should be reflected in legal education in a class called “Contorts”.
In closing, Gilmore notes the constantly changing tides of legal thought, and states that “Contract is dead - but who knows what unlikely resurrection the Easter-tide may bring?” Academic reactions to the book were generally positive upon its release,[5][6][7] although some of its central theories about the trajectory of contract law were divisive.