An interleaved soft switching bridge power converter comprises switching poles operated in an interleaved manner so as to substantially reduce turn-on switching losses and diode reverse-recovery losses in the switching pole elements. Switching poles are arranged into bridge circuits that are operated so as to provide a desired voltage, current and/or power waveform to a load. By reducing switching turn on and diode reverse recovery losses, soft switching power converters of the invention may operate efficiently at higher switching frequencies. Soft switching power converters of the invention are well suited to high power and high voltage applications such as plasma processing, active rectifiers, distributed generation, motor drive inverters and class D power amplifiers.