This literature review and historical overview of academic collective bargaining in American higher education, with special emphasis on public higher education in Connecticut, is part of a Ph.D. dissertation entitled "A Development, Comparison, and Contrast of Selected Faculty Administration Consensuses Regarding Collective Bargaining Contracts in Connecticut's Four Subsystems of Public Higher Education." The review points out that the specific context in which an individual contract is negotiated appears to be the most important factor in determining the nature of that contract and its results. A key contextual factor seems to be the degree of adversarialism existent between the two power blocs, administration and faculty. The paper reviews: (1) the history and growth of collective bargaining by faculty in public institutions of higher education; (2) the reasons why faculty are turning to collective bargaining; (3) the early results of the process in public higher education institutions; (4) the influence of institutional context in the bargaining experience; (5) the problem of advarsarialism highlighted by the bargaining process; and (6) the ways in which collective bargaining might be adapted to the needs of faculty in public higher education institutions. (JMF)