This book examines the complex interaction between the Egyptian state and Egypt’s local entrepreneurs in the last two centuries. The first chapter reviews the broader literature on the role of the state in facilitating entrepreneurship. Based on this literature, the book formulates its main thesis: If the state and private business can negotiate “win-win” deals, economic development will follow. The book explores Egypt’s business history with this insight in mind, categorizing each historical episode based on the “deals” forged between the two actors. Chapters 2 to 4 cover these episodes. Chapter 5 concludes with policy recommendations to the current government: The state must pursue economic liberalization and a pro-business agenda in order to achieve long-term economic growth.

The book classifies state-business relations into seven “modalities.” Chronologically, these modalities are as follows: Muhammad Ali’s state industrialization (1805–1848), which stressed the central government’s exclusive involvement; Khedive Ismail’s development program (1863–1879), which relied on massive public projects financed with foreign investment; the British occupation (1882–1922), which undertook fiscal reforms and got involved in irrigation projects but otherwise minimized state involvement; the “Liberal Age” (1923–1952), during which, thanks to the government’s economic reforms, a local entrepreneurial elite coalesced as competitors to Europeans; Nasser’s socialist agenda (1952–1970), which led to broad nationalization of foreign and local private business; Sadat’s regime (1970–1981), whose policies emphasized market liberalization; and Mubarak (1981–2010), who continued the previous pro-business initiatives.

Overall, the book is a valuable entry in business history, which is largely dominated by the experience of western enterprises. The analysis is brief; perhaps, too brief. The scope is ambitious, spanning two centuries that include dramatic economic and political transitions. While the book purports to explore Egypt’s entrepreneurs, the focus is singularly on the state. There is little discussion of actual firm histories or entrepreneurial practices of local businesspeople. When local entrepreneurs enter the analysis, the emphasis is on large-scale enterprises. While this is not unusual in much of the literature, it is particularly misleading for Egypt’s historical development. Doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations using the industrial and commercial census of 1937, one can see that private industrial establishments with fewer than five employees accounted for 92 percent of all industrial establishments and about 66 percent of total industrial employment. There is almost no discussion of these small and medium-sized enterprises. Furthermore, at this point in Egypt’s economic history, the industrial sector was by far dwarfed by the agricultural sector, which is also missing from the main analysis. The lack of evidence undermines the book’s thesis about the state’s role in broader economic development.

When it comes to what the analysis actually focuses on—the state’s relationship with the business elite—the book advances contradictory accounts. The authors advocate liberal, market-friendly policies. Yet, they give glowing praise to Muhammad Ali for being the “sole industrial entrepreneur” while condemning Nasser for his state-centric strategy. If anything, both eras were fairly similar in terms of economic policy. Both rulers established extensive state monopolies, redistributed land, introduced trade protections, and crowded out private entrepreneurs. Muhammad Ali implemented outright forced labor, which is as far from a free labor market as one could get.

The analysis also overlooks the negative economic implications of the so-called “win-win” deals of the more liberal spells. The interwar period, for example, oversaw the formation of a local business elite. But this elite had tight connections with the political-military complex. To establish any large firm—the scale of enterprise on which the book implicitly focuses on—one had to go through a costly incorporation process that involved getting special permission from the government and add “natives” to the company’s board of directors. At the outset, these periods might have looked liberal. In reality, they were marked by a particularized institutional framework that could not have led to persistent long-run growth. The analysis neglects these points precisely because it does not explore the empirical evidence on the entrepreneurs themselves.

Despite the limits of the source material, the book is a useful read for practitioners interested in the different strategies the state pursued and the potential implications of these policies on Egypt’s economic development.