This article presents international evidence on takeover activity, and uses that evidence to argue that the current takeover wave can fairly be called the first-ever international merger wave, as much or more than it can be called the fifth U.S. merger wave. I also discuss the factors that contribute to the strength of the current takeover wave and why the takeover boom has engendered so little political concern. A longer version of this article was published as The First International Merger Wave and the Fifth and Last U.S. Wave, 54 University of Miami Law Review 799-818 (2000), and is available from the Social Science Research Network electronic library at http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=231101