Audiobooks narrated by Bob Johnson

The CIA Intelligence Analyst: Views from the Inside

The common perception of a CIA officer is someone who collects secret intelligence abroad—a spy. However, the critical link between secrets and policy is the intelligence analyst. The CIA Intelligence Analyst brings to light the vital, but often-unseen, work of these officers. Roger Z. George, Robert Levine, and the contributors to this book demystify the profession of intelligence analyst at the CIA and describe how the wide array of analytic specialties—or 'disciplines' in the language of the CIA—function. The disciplines range from political, economic, leadership, and military matters to science and technology, cyber, counterterrorism, and counterintelligence. Each of the chapters—written by former or current CIA analysts—discusses how analysts interact with those who collect raw intelligence. Just as important, the chapters describe the relationships analysts develop with the diverse set of policymakers who use CIA analyses. The contributors reveal the key intelligence questions that analysts address, their methods, their products, and their challenges. This book will be an invaluable resource for scholars of national security and intelligence who want to develop a fuller picture of the internal workings of the CIA and for those who are considering a career as an analyst.

Adam Wasserman, Blake Mobley, Clark Shannon, Cynthia S. Barkanic, James B. Bruce, Jane P. Fletcher, Jeffrey W. Waggett, Peter Clement, Robert Levine, Roger Z. George, Steven M. Stigall (Author), Bob Johnson, Linda Jones (Narrator)

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Grand Old Unraveling: The Republican Party, Donald Trump, and the Rise of Authoritarianism

It didn't begin with Donald Trump. Since the time of FDR, the Republican Party has been home to conspiracy thinking, including a belief that lost elections were rigged. And when Republicans later won the White House, the party elevated their presidents to heroic status-a predisposition that eventually posed a threat to democracy. John Kenneth White proposes to explain why this happened-not just the election of Trump but the authoritarian shift in the party as a whole that led to the insurrection of January 6, 2021, and its aftermath. White presents a clear and concise analysis of how the modern Republican Party came to be by tracing historical patterns that reach back to the 1930s. He argues that the rise of Republican authoritarianism has been decades in the making, going back to the desperation that took hold among party elites in the wake of twenty years of Democratic dominance between 1932 and 1952. The fear of losing that overtook the party during the Roosevelt period eventually led to an escalation of intrigue that included the rise of the John Birch Society in the 1950s and QAnon today. White traces the development of this culture of conspiracy theories within the GOP and explains how the emphasis on winning at any cost created a cult of personality and a willingness to seize power by any means necessary.

John Kenneth White (Author), Bob Johnson (Narrator)

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The Search for Reagan: The Appealing Intellectual Conservatism of Ronald Reagan

Never before has anyone explored the mind, soul, and heart of Ronald Reagan. The Search for Reagan explores the challenges and controversies in Reagan's life and how he successfully dealt with each, depicting a man who was never as conservative as some conservatives wanted him to be, but rather as conservative as he was comfortable being-a man who wanted to win on his own terms and integrity. Ronald Reagan was a singularly unique man and conservative who championed a wildly successful revolution-leading to more freedom and less government for the American people and to the fall of communism, while boosting American morale. He was the first president in many years who believed optimism from the Oval Office had a direct bearing on the affairs of the nation. As a consequence, he left office more popular than when he entered, with a whopping 73 percent approval. He understood that American conservatism was based upon the individual and not the group. In his presidency, he solved the mystery of high inflation that had bedeviled his predecessor, high interest rates, and high gas prices. He created over twenty million new jobs, and the number of American millionaires grew from 4,414 to 34,944. He is considered by most historians to be one of our four greatest presidents, along with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt.

Craig Shirley (Author), Bob Johnson (Narrator)

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What We've Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms

Long at the forefront of a movement advocating for gun reform as a matter of public health, Dr. Jonathan M. Metzl has been on constant media call in the aftermath of fatal shootings. But the 2018 Nashville killings led him on a path toward recognizing the limitations of biomedical frameworks for fully diagnosing or treating the impassioned complexities of American gun politics. As he came to understand it, public health is a harder sell in a nation that fundamentally disagrees about what it means to be safe, healthy, or free. In What We've Become, Metzl reckons both with the long history of distrust of public health and the larger forces-social, ideological, historical, racial, and political-that allow mass shootings to occur on a near daily basis in America. Looking closely at the cycle in which mass shootings lead to shock, horror, calls for action, and, ultimately, political gridlock, he explores what happens to the soul of a nation-and the meanings of safety and community-when we normalize violence as an acceptable trade-off for freedom. This brilliant, piercing analysis points to mass shootings as a symptom of our most unresolved national conflicts. What We've Become ultimately sets us on the path of alliance forging, racial reckoning, and political power brokering we must take to put things right.

Jonathan M. Metzl (Author), Bob Johnson (Narrator)

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Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America

Just as World War II transformed the United States into a global military and economic superpower, so too did it forge the gun country America is today. After 1945, war-ravaged European nations possessed large surpluses of mass-produced weapons, and American entrepreneurs seized the opportunity to buy used munitions for pennies on the dollar and resell them stateside. A booming consumer market made cheap guns accessible to millions of Americans, and rates of gun ownership and violence began to climb. Andrew C. McKevitt tells the history of this gun boom through the dynamics of consumer capitalism and Cold War ideology, the combination of which resulted in a vast number of Americans arming themselves to the teeth and centering their political identity on their guns. When gun control legislation emerged in the 1960s, many Americans, accustomed to the unregulated postwar bounty of cheap guns and fearful of Soviet invasion, domestic subversion, and urban uprisings, fiercely challenged it. Meanwhile, gun control groups were diverted from their abolitionist roots toward a conciliatory, fundraising-focused strategy that struggled to limit the stockpiling of firearms. Gun Country recasts the story of guns in postwar America as one of Cold War and racial anxieties, unfettered capitalism, and exceptional violence that continues to haunt us.

Andrew C. Mckevitt (Author), Bob Johnson (Narrator)

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Power Boating For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Power Boating For Dummies, Second Edition teaches you everything you need to know about buying, choosing, operating, maintaining, and enjoying a power boat, and provides expert guidance for new boaters. This is also a fantastic book for experienced boaters, because it's full of tips and ideas on improving boating skills and getting the most out of water-time with the latest tech. With this guide, you can ace your boating pilot's exam and master the techniques you'll need to stay safe and have fun out there. You'll also find recommendations on great destinations for boating trips, plus coverage of all that's new in the world of boating-touch-screen navigation, automatic docking, smart boats, and even running routes right from your iPhone. Get on board! - Choose the right boat for your needs and learn the safety rules - Get good at piloting your boat in all kinds of conditions - Outfit your boat with the right gear and supplies - Discover new tech gadgets to make boating even more fun For complete beginners who are new to power boating, as well as more experienced boaters looking for a complete reference, Power Boating For Dummies, Second Edition, is a must.

Randy Vance (Author), Bob Johnson (Narrator)

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The Opening of the Protestant Mind: How Anglo-American Protestants Embraced Religious Liberty

During the mid-seventeenth century, Anglo-American Protestants described Native American ceremonies as savage devilry, Islamic teaching as violent chicanery, and Catholicism as repugnant superstition. By the mid-eighteenth century, they would describe amicable debates between evangelical missionaries and Algonquian religious leaders about the moral appeal of Christianity, recount learned conversations between English merchants and Muslim scholars, and tell of encounters with hospitable and sincere priests in Catholic Canada and Europe. What explains this poignant shift? Using a variety of sources, The Opening of the Protestant Mind traces a transformation in how English and colonial American Protestants described other religions during a crucial period of English colonization of North America. After the English Revolution of 1688 and the subsequent growth of the British empire, observers began to link Britain's success to civic moral virtues, including religious toleration, rather than to any particular religious creed. Mark Valeri shows how a wide range of Protestants-including liberal Anglicans, Calvinist dissenters, deists, and evangelicals-began to see other religions not as entirely good or entirely bad, but as complex, and to evaluate them according to their commitment to religious liberty.

Mark Valeri (Author), Bob Johnson (Narrator)

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The Panic of 1907, 2nd Edition: Heralding a New Era of Finance, Capitalism, and Democracy

An authoritative 'biography' of one of history's great financial crises with enduring lessons about contemporary finance In this newly-revised second edition, offering 50% entirely new material, The Panic of 1907: Heralding a New Era of Finance, Capitalism, and Democracy, delivers a groundbreaking examination of one of the most consequential crises in financial history. Deftly weaving historical evidence, insightful analysis, and compelling narrative, The Panic of 1907 explains how and why a financial panic unfolds, with lessons that can be applied to our understanding of present-day financial and monetary systems. In the book, you'll find: the reasons why, despite today's stronger monetary regime and risk-mitigation tools, our modern institutions are not immune to future crises; explanations about the development of the United States' Federal Reserve System, which was created in 1913 in direct response to the Panic of 1907; and an engaging and entertaining account of an innately fascinating period in financial and economic history, with remarkable leaders and a gallery of rogues. An indispensable tale that belongs on the shelves of anyone with an interest in American or financial history, The Panic of 1907 is an expert retelling of one of the most important, but least well-known crises of the last 200 years.

Robert F. Bruner, Sean D. Carr (Author), Bob Johnson (Narrator)

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The Struggle for Law in the Oceans: How an Isolationist Narrative Betrays America

During the 1970s and 1980s the United States led the world in negotiating one of the most important treaties in history, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Through these negotiations the United States secured the largest area of maritime jurisdiction in the world-an area larger than the continental United States itself-and protected navigational freedom, so critical for Naval mobility. Today UNCLOS is in force for 168 countries and the European Union. Isolationist arguments, however, have for a quarter-century prevented the Senate from voting on the Convention. This book discusses the robust reasons favoring the Convention, and offers a sharp critical examination of the arguments still being made against it. John Norton Moore posits that isolationist obstruction has cost the United States two deep seabed mine sites, 'USA-2' and 'USA-3,' for a loss of a half trillion dollars in strategic minerals, and shows how a continuation of this narrative threatens the loss of 'USA-1' and 'USA-4' for another half trillion dollars-all while China has acquired four deep seabed sites and the Russian Federation three. In this groundbreaking and vigorously argued work, Moore asserts that it is time to accede to the Convention, as has been urged for decades by presidents from both sides of the political divide.

John Norton Moore (Author), Bob Johnson (Narrator)

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Dual Momentum Investing: An Innovative Strategy for Higher Returns with Lower Risk

WINNER, Business: Personal Finance/Investing, 2014 USA Best Book Awards FINALIST, Business: Personal Finance/Investing, 2015 International Book Awards Dual Momentum Investing details the author's own momentum investing method that combines US stock, non-US stock, and aggregate bond indices-in a formula proven to dramatically increase profits while lowering risk. Antonacci reveals how momentum investors could have achieved long-run returns nearly twice as high as the stock market over the past forty years, while avoiding or minimizing bear market losses-and he provides the information and insight investors need to achieve such success going forward. His methodology, supported by rigorous academic research, is designed to pick up on major changes in relative strength and market trend.

Gary Antonacci (Author), Bob Johnson (Narrator)

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Age of Invisible Machines: A Practical Guide to Creating a Hyperautomated Ecosystem of Intelligent D

In Age of Invisible Machines, Robb Wilson delivers an eye-opening and startlingly insightful blueprint for leveraging conversational AI in order to make your organization self-driving-with a growing ecosystem of interconnected automations accelerating all aspects of your business. Conversational AI is changing the nature of every job at every company and this book is relevant for anyone who will be affected by the acceleration of these technologies. You'll learn how to develop a strategy for hyperautomation by identifying the outdated processes and systems holding your organization back. You'll discover ways of internalizing and orchestrating new technologies that are force-multipliers for rapid growth. A must-listen for every business leader, Wilson's book debunks common myths about conversational AI while laying bare the inevitable complexity of restructuring your business to unlock the massive opportunities this new era affords. You'll also find: compelling discussions of the ethical dilemmas that lie in wait as mass adoption of conversational AI takes hold; fascinating explorations of what a self-driving organization looks like and how you can use conversational AI to create a durable competitive advantage; and strategies behind creating an ecosystem for hyperautomation that any company can begin implementing immediately.

Robb Wilson (Author), Bob Johnson (Narrator)

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Live Abundantly! 50 Business Lessons from the Bible

Fran Tabor (Author), Bob Johnson (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Bob Johnson