I’ve never much liked January 1 as a time for starting new ventures. As I’ve noted in past columns, I don’t see the sense in calling upon extraordinary reserves of energy and self-discipline at this time of the natural year.

In a lifetime of reading, studying, and teaching history, I find myself returning again and again to certain periods of the human story which seem to me particularly intriguing or immediately instructive.

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

When you grow up in a political family, you start early. One of my first memories is of Dad showing me a newspaper cartoon of President Eisenhower tying up a pair of sneakers. The caption read “Ike puts on his running shoes again.”