The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...And How We Can Be Safe Again

by Tom Ridge, Lary Bloom

In the harrowing days after September 11, 2001, the President of the United States reached out to one man to help guide the nation in its quest to shore up domestic security.

In this candid and compelling memoir, Tom Ridge describes the whirlwind series of events that took him from the state capital of Pennsylvania, into the fray of Washington, D.C., and onto the world stage as a new leader in the fight against international terrorism.

A Washington outsider, Ridge went above and beyond in his new post, identifying the need to integrate response teams on a wide-reaching scale and leading the nation's ambitious initiative of establishing a new Cabinet department, the Department of Homeland Security. The author recounts how the new department's unsung heroes, brought together under great duress, succeeded against difficult odds and navigated the politics of terrorism.

Perhaps most importantly, Ridge offers a prescriptive look to the future with provocative ideas such as a national ID card and the use of biometrics to track not just who enters the United States but also how long they are here. Tom Ridge simply tells it like it is, offering a refreshingly honest assessment of the state of homeland security today―and what it needs to be tomorrow.

304 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 2010

About the author

Thomas Joseph Ridge is an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives (1983–1995), Governor of Pennsylvania (1995–2001), Assistant to the President for Homeland Security (2001–2003), and the first United States Secretary of Homeland Security (2003–2005). Since re-entering the private sector, Ridge has served on the boards of The Home Depot and The Hershey Company and as a senior advisor to Deloitte & Touche, and TechRadium. Ridge is also the founder and CEO of Ridge Global, LLC, a Washington, D.C. based security consulting firm. Ridge spent time campaigning with fellow Republican, Senator John McCain during his 2008 bid for the presidency and was believed by some to have been in the short list of potential running mates. Ridge wrote in his memoir that then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and then-Attorney General Ashcroft pressured him to raise the terror alert level, running up to the 2004 elections, based upon information they had received.[3] Ridge, however, "felt that it was politically motivated" and he ignored their advice based "upon a feeling that the war in Iraq was being politically turned into a war on terror".