The inaugural addresses of presidents of the United States have inspired and comforted, set new national directions, and defined not only presidents but entire eras of American history. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s assurance ‘that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself’ gave hope to an America suffering through the Great Depression and signalled the beginning of the modern American welfare state. John F. Kennedy embodied a youthful American idealism and challenged a new generation of Americans during the Cold War: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’ Ronald Reagan set a different ideological course for the nation with his diagnosis that ‘government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem’.