Abstract
For more than a century of development, the industrial relations systems of Western European countries grew in very diverse and changing ways. The forms they adopted can be mapped against a set of basic types, and this study moves between historical detail and theoretical typology in order to capture the complexity of that mapping. The book traces the development of trade unions, organized employers, the state's role, and patterns of industrial conflict in 15 countries. It concludes by linking contemporary industrial relations systems to a longue durŽe of relations between states and societies reaching back to the Reformation.