The contributions to this 1989 volume are concerned with the patterns of continuity and change in industrial labour conflicts in major industrialized countries before, during, and in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. The articles have been conceived as part of a series of efforts to assist the further development of comparative labour history, and in particular the application of quantitative techniques to the analysis of industrial labour conflicts in comparative perspective. The intensive examination of strike waves in the volume offers a nuanced critique of economic models of strike activities. Political and organizational explanations come in for trenchant analysis as well.