By the early 1970's, political and scholarly tides had shifted away from the confidence and optimism of the 1960's. The initial broad consensus on the nation's problems and their solutions declined. An evolution is apparent in the attitudes and pronouncements by popular scholars on the role of federal government and its capacity to bring about beneficial change in three areas: poverty and discrimination, education and training, and unemployment and inflation. It can be argued that the political eclipse of the Great Society depended more on external events (the Vietnam war, dissolution of the civil rights coalition, and the Watergate scandal and its repercussions) than on its intrinsic failings. Both the initial commitment to use national policies to solve social and economic problems, and the subsequent disillusionment of scholars and laymen alike rest largely on preconceptions and faiths that have little to do with research findings or with the success or failure of the programs themselves. (Author/MSE)