The growth of financial intermediation in today's world presents challenges for sound regulation and has the potential, ultimately, to undermine the stability of markets. One of the challenges which has been prominent among those considered by supranational and national authorities alike is the increased legal uncertainty caused by a mismatch between the practice of holding interests in securities through intermediaries and the jurisprudence of ownership, which itself reflects concepts long since settled in every legal jurisdiction round the globe.

If we are to negotiate this minefield of legal uncertainty successfully, we will need to think broadly and deeply in order to gain a rich understanding of this relatively new practice of holding and circulating interests in securities through intermediaries. And if we are to do that, then we can do no better than to start with this hugely valuable and clever book.

Dr Matteo Solinas does not stop, however, at proposing a new cross-cultural understanding of the law on securities intermediation. He has a much higher purpose. He would like to give the world a new intellectual framework within which to understand legal change and its complexities. In this respect, as in others, we should regard his book as an exercise in thought leadership for the modern world. If the defining legal philosophical task of the twentieth century was to account for the legitimacy of law in a world of conflicting political and moral rights, that of the twentyfirst century will undoubtedly be to explain and justify the law in a world of rapid social and industrial change.

I first met Matteo through the work of the Financial Markets Law Committee, which is greatly indebted to him for the painstaking research he undertook, informing several of its most important papers. Matteo's highly perceptive analyses revealed his intellectual tenacity, his incisive focus and his ability to draw on a broad array of themes from diverse legal cultures. It is these qualities which ensure that this study is not only important and relevant but also one which makes that most valuable of intellectual contributions: a whole new schema within which to reappraise our collective received wisdom.

This book is particularly welcome as dealing with a topic, namely the dematerialisation and intermediation of securities, which has been thrown into sharp relief by the post-2008 financial crisis. The audience to whom the book will be of interest is undoubtedly a large one.