'At the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species, it is an opportune time to ask how and why, in coping with the environmental changes of markets and legal constraints, British employment relations as a species has been transformed in the past quarter century. William Brown and his colleagues have provided a globally relevant and truly insightful picture based on WIRS/WERS.' Takeshi Inagami, University of Tokyo and the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training (JILPT)