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No God But Gain: The Untold Story of Cuban Slavery, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Making of the United States Hardcover – September 8, 2015

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4.3 out of 5 stars 16 customer reviews
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  • No God But Gain: The Untold Story of Cuban Slavery, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Making of the United States
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The latest book club pick from Oprah
"The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead is a magnificent novel chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. See more

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Verso (September 8, 2015)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1781688079
  • ISBN-13: 978-1781688076
  • Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1 x 9.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #998,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsProvides good analysis of the early American tendency to flaunt laws for profit
By Connie (She who hikes with dogs) TOP 500 REVIEWER on September 28, 2015
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
This narrative is much more than just the illegal slave trade with Cuba early in the 19th century, but also the story of our earlier unscrupulous merchants, politicians and lawyers who allowed it all to happen. It's not just about the slave trade, either, but how US merchants circumnavigated the embargo by opening up trade with Russia and letting rationed items like coffee and sugar enter the European market in violation of the French request.

Sugar, coffee, cotton, indogo and dyewoods were all coveted items, in both the Americas and Europe. The English-French rivalries during the Napoleonic eras made it more difficult for American merchants to do business legally. Stephen Chambers completed extensive research to show that many of our famed Founding Fathers like John Quincy Adams and Thomas Jefferson used their political influence, their Harvard connections and their wealth to earn their part in this country's early foundings as a country quick to deal with smuggling, corruption and bribery to help their businesses thrive.

What Chambers also meticulously analyzes is how, due to the US merchant's canniness to stop in neutral ports to smuggle goods across the ocean, the French invaded Russia due to Russia's ignoring any trade embargoes, how the illegal slave trade from Cuba to the US helped bring along the Civil War decades later and how close the ties were between the US and Spanish merchants. Cuba could easily have become an economic powerhouse under American influence. It got American flour while we got their sugar. Both sides were willing to close an eye at any of the smuggling as that meant the merchants were getting wealthy. With the war of 1812 and England heating up, having an ally with Spain was crucial. This is an interesting read because of the new perspective, and should delight American history buffs.
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5.0 out of 5 starsNot Morals, Just Profits
By Michael Griswold VINE VOICE on September 8, 2015
Format: Hardcover
The abolishment of the slave trade was to occur in the United States in 1808 amid a wave of abolition across the world. That has often been the prevailing wisdom. In No God, But Gain, Stephen Chambers turns conventional wisdom on its head by declaring that a quarter of the Africans brought to Cuba as slaves arrived after the trade was allegedly abolished because powerful commercial interests and their friends in high places—Monroe Doctrine anyone were determined to ensure that a highly profitable enterprise continued. One can see certain parallels to the business and political climate of today.

Chambers draws the slave owners in very colorful detail illustrating the links that they would go to in order to keep the gravy train rolling, pretty much everything including crime, trickery, and deceit was all game for the sake of gain. The information contained in this book is equal parts jarring and infuriating. Yet, I cannot say that I am particularly surprised. In conclusion, I think this book will confirm the feelings of the United States worst critics, from both yesterday and today.
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4.0 out of 5 starsWell researched and a welcome contribution
By OnceMore on September 9, 2015
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
At the start of the 19th century, several countries around the world had moved to ban slave trading. In the United States, slave trading was supposed to have become illegal at the beginning of 1808, but as recounted in this book, this fact didn't matter to several profit-driven Americans who used every means at their disposal to build and / or to secure the continued thriving of their slave-dependent agricultural businesses.

This book chronicles the activities of several Americans who went to Cuba to build business empires on the back of the slaves illegally brought to Cuba from Africa, and how they were aided and abetted by American government officials because the fledgling American economy benefited from such activities.

This well researched book is a welcome contribution because it calls into question some widely-held beliefs regarding the real motivation(s) behind certain individuals' and / or governments' actions, and attempts to provide alternative explanations for certain historical outcomes.
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5.0 out of 5 starsBoth thoroughly researched and readable
By A. J Terry on September 10, 2015
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
The United States Constitution stated that no ban could be placed on the importation of slaves till 1808. Such a ban did go into effect in 1808, but the illegal slave trade continued for decades. No God But Gain is a study of the economic consequences of the illegal slave trade in the early 19th century, the period being seen as itself and not merely as a lead-up to the Civil War. This book shows how heavily the nation depended on the slave trade and how our Founding Fathers protected it and participated in it. The Monroe Doctrine, hubristic in its mention of both North and South America (the US had only 16 warships at the time) was created to protect the illegal slave trade. This is a well-researched, readable study of an important and somewhat neglected topic.
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5.0 out of 5 starsOverall An Outstanding Work of Scholarsip Speaking Truth To Power.
By R. A. Barricklow(Scaramouche) VINE VOICE on September 30, 2015
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic/James Dresden, British Novelist.
First, the work of Stephen Chamber's No God But Gain is superb. The theme that it was the consistency in the rise of the slave trade with respect to U.S. development that shaped the nation is explicitly laid out in a manner that leaves no doubt that this theme is on a solid foundation of factual historical record. Also, it was the men, women and children of slavery who were often worked to death in the course of five to eight years. The author zeroed in on the mercantile class as a whole and through various characters of that time period expressed/they are the cause of all these wars, without ever taking part in them or suffering from them...they have no country but their counting houses, no God but gain...the merchants burnt and destroyed by little and little. They consumed by defrauding all sides> It was nothing to them who was victorious or who vanquished. They made their profit with equal indifference out of all[Count St. James, A German nobleman].
What I find too common among scholars is an absolute void of understanding the classic economics that has played a most deadly & sinister hand in this history; and has done throughout history, including today. This is the banking cartel's monopoly on issuance of currency. Benjamin Franklin, in his autobiography stated/The colonies would have gladly borne the little tax on tea and other matters had not England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

interesting EXPLAN ATION OF THE INTERESTED PARTIES IN THE SLAVE TRADE

Published 5 days ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent book and potential TV series

You won't be able to put the book down. It's perfect for a TV series. The book is well documented and written. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Almudena Arcelus
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat historical read

This was a great take on a touchy subject. It was well researched and thought out which made it an easy to read history of a very unscrupulous time in American history. Read more

Published 10 months ago by Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 starsA very narrow and speculative perspective on the impact of slave labor...

There was a time when authors and theatrical producers hoped (at least figuratively) that their works would be banned in Boston in order to encourage sales elsewhere as audiences... Read more

Published 10 months ago by Jerry Saperstein
4.0 out of 5 starsA Compelling History

In "No God But Gain", historian Stephen Chambers presents the story of a flourishing Carribean Slve Trade that took root after the official ban of the slave trade in the... Read more

Published 10 months ago by Ellie
4.0 out of 5 starsA good addition to the book shelf of a history professor ...

I am giving this exploration of slavery outside the United States in the early years of the Republic four stars because of the importance of the subject matter. Read more

Published 10 months ago by Ms Winston
4.0 out of 5 starsScholarly and deeply detailed - research more than emotion

I would agree with other reviewers who note the scholarly tone - so as long as you go into the book expecting that, you'll be fine. Read more

Published 10 months ago by Nathan Webster
3.0 out of 5 starsReads about as exciting as an accounting general ledger

Meticulously researched and scholarly written, "No God But Gain" fails to weave a smooth narrative from the plethora of characters involved in the slave trade that spanned... Read more

Published 11 months ago by Brian Kodi
3.0 out of 5 starsDecent, but a bit dry

The United States banned the importation of slaves in 1808, but that didn't halt the slave trade. It merely continued outside US borders, and the United States and many of its more... Read more

Published 11 months ago by Chris Swanson
5.0 out of 5 starsRevealing

Stephen Chambers has produced a readable book about a neglected aspect of early American history. He explains how U.S. Read more

Published 11 months ago by Mitchell R. Alegre

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