Juliet E. K. Walker's first edition of The History of Black Business in America: Capitalism, Race, Entrepreneurship is regarded by many as having “set the standard by which scholarship on black business history should be measured.” The History of Black Business in America: Capitalism, Race, Entrepreneurship, Volume 1, to 1865 (Second Edition) focuses on the antebellum period and expands upon work in the first edition. The book is a comprehensive historical survey of the economic development of black business that begins with a discussion of the transatlantic slave trade and ends with an analysis of black business during the Civil War. It critically examines the domestic and international forces which influenced black entrepreneurs and (the often overlooked) intrapreneurs. The author discusses the full range of black business activities from real estate to hospitality to undertaking and cemetery enterprises. Utilizing significant archival research to relay stories of black businessmen and women, Walker's book is a compelling synthesis of primary source research and previous scholarship.

In this work, Walker assails the ideas depicting Africans as passive victims of Western commercial exploitation and slaves as “stolen people.” She focuses on several themes too infrequently addressed in the historical literature: 1) The mercantile culture of precolonial West Africa served as the basis for African American business activity in the antebellum period; 2) The same capitalistic system that supported and enable slavery allowed both slave and free blacks to “developed enterprises in colonial America that contributed to the commercial life of the nation during the age of slavery”; 3) The Civil War not only caused a “downturn in black business advancement, but also presaged the state of black commerce in post-Civil War America”; 4) America's long history of supporting white business at the expense of black people via local, state, and federal assistance often is obfuscated; and 5) Paradoxically, African American business activities before the Civil War “had more in common with those activities of blacks in the post-Civil Rights era, than they did with the business activities of blacks during their first century of freedom.”

Many scholars have put forth the argument that deep-seated, anticapitalist values in the African inheritance deterred African American entrepreneurial activity. However, through Walker's documentation of aspects of the precolonial African culture (e.g., African markets, trading organizations, and craft and merchant guilds); she clearly establishes that an African “business ethos” existed in the precolonial era. Walker's premise is that the precolonial African culture “provided the foundation for the origin and development of the African American business tradition” in the face of an inimical environment for business. She maintains that a “business ethos did survive the transatlantic passage and consequently provided the foundation for the origin of the African American business tradition.” Walker goes on to present a clear and indisputable historical record of the black entrepreneurial tradition. Walker makes the case that during slavery times and emancipation, the business climate was hostile for the majority of blacks. Most blacks had few belongings, had no land, and were handicapped by illiteracy. In the antebellum period, both legal constraints and institutional racism mired the potential development of any black business enterprise. Walker shows that despite these unbelievably severe constraints, black people developed enterprises in colonial America that collectively became a meaningful component of the American business landscape. In this context, the notion of a lack of African American business tradition is not credible. This is a profound and exceptionally well-researched book. Using a rich array of primary sources, Walker incorporates copious details of specific black entrepreneurial activities into chapter 4 and chapter 5. Her discourse on the role of family relationships within and driving business activities is deftly presented though her stories of individual black entrepreneurs like Stephen Smith and the Soulie brothers. In the conclusion of chapter 4, Walker mentions that only 3 percent of antebellum free blacks were business proprietors. More detailed summary statistics such as this would be useful in providing a better sense of the magnitude and scope (relative to the mainstream white businesses) of black enterprises within the various business sectors of the pre-Civil War economy. Notwithstanding this suggestion, the book is extraordinarily well written and should appeal to economists and historians alike. This powerful book holds an important place in the business and economic history literature with respect to antebellum African American business and the role of culture in entrepreneurship.