Nearly a quarter of America out of work.

Between 1929 and 1933 American output fell by nearly 30% and unemployment rose from about 3% to nearly 25%. In 1936 John Maynard Keynes argued in The General Theory that total spending could stay too low to employ everyone, and that full employment might need government spending. In July 1944 delegates from 44 nations met at Bretton Woods and agreed new rules for the world's money.

The question it made urgent