Heroic Defeats is a comparative investigation of how unions and firms interact when economic circumstances require substantial job loss. Using simple game theory to generate testable propositions about when these situations will result in industrial conflict, Professor Golden illustrates the theory in a range of situations between 1950 and 1985 in Japan, Italy, and Britain.

Additionally, the author shows how the theory explains why strikes over job loss almost never occur in postwar unionized firms in the United States. While these four countries exhibit substantial historical, cultural, and political differences - as well as marked variations in their industrial and economic structures - this book shows that unions' responses to job loss can be analyzed within the same theoretical framework in all cases.