The article focuses on the new data collected on mass unemployment in the countries. Viewed historically over the past half century, high and sustained unemployment for most industrialized countries was a phenomenon confined to the interwar years. The findings for foreign countries are from a study by Walter Galenson, of the University of California at Berkeley, and Arnold Zeliner, of the University of Washington. With great resourcefulness they developed annual estimates reaching as far back as 1904 to 1913 for seven European countries (United Kingdom, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden) plus Canada and Australia, that permit comparisons of unemployment trends over a wider area and time span than ever before possible. For the period 1946-1950, Galenson and Zeilner's estimates show comparatively low average unemployment in five of the eight countries with records 3 per cent or less for Britain, Norway, Sweden, Canada, Australia (and probably France as well). In Belgium, Germany, and Denmark, unemployment averaged 7 per cent to 9 per cent in the postwar years.