This book sets out to slay some classic shibboleths about what African business looks like and hence what its economic prospects are. Taylor's key arguments can briefly be expressed as follows: there is more than one kind of African business culture, and African businesses are both more various and healthier than we may have imagined. He provides a clear-eyed review of the current state of business on the course, steering a careful course between a hopeless and over-determined Afropessimism, and a giddy, reckless boisterism about its prospects. Nonetheless, his tone remains refreshingly upbeat and pragmatic.

This book forms part of two recent shifts in much writing about Africa: a more bullish view of Africa's economic prospects, and a resurgence of interest in the continent's business sector. Both shifts are significant and their rough coincidence may not be entirely accidental. The upswing in growth rates and inflows of FDI in many states across the continent have highlighted the importance of business as a key economic actor – and how little we actually know about it, due to the historical lacunae on this subject in the broader study of Africa.

Critics of the notion of ‘African culture’ might bristle at the book's title, but Taylor's use of the plural form is deliberate. Indeed, as rapidly becomes clear, much of the book eschews a singular and deterministic usage of that term. Taylor systematically critiques the view that there is such a thing as African capitalism that is ‘culturally distinct and culturally deficient’ (p. 6). His argument here is closely tied to his critique of the term neo-patrimonial – a term that has come under increasing fire. He points to the way in which arguments that stress the neo-patrimonial nature of business in Africa can produce a monotonal, deterministic and fundamentally inaccurate view of business in Africa.

Taylor is intent on bringing into view a much larger number – and variety – of enterprises, than we generally consider. His definition of ‘African business’ is not restricted only to firms run by black/indigenous Africans. Instead he includes two additional and important sectors. First he includes minority and settler businesses too; second, he includes in his definition not only legitimate firms but also so-called crony capitalists. He hereby reminds us that business in Africa (as elsewhere) has many different origins, including some rooted in practices of crony capitalism. However this does not determine how those firms or their owners will evolve. It is context and incentives, he argues, that determine the political and economic contributions such firms are ultimately likely to make. Corruption is thus not only infinitely compatible with the functioning of capitalism, but crony capitalists can, in the right circumstances and constraints, be transformed into legitimate and productive businesspeople. (A version of this argument is explored and presented at some length in another significant new contribution on African business, Tim Kelsall's Business, Politics and the State in Africa, published last year by Zed Books.)

Finally, Taylor argues that just such a shift in context is already and visibly under way in a number of countries: he points to the political and economic ‘sea change’ that began in many African political economies around the turn of the century and how this has created a more conducive working environment for business. Taylor observes here that that globalisation has not had only malign consequences, but that especially more recent variants contributed to a more hospitable and productive environment for business in many African countries.