The Advance of African Capital provides the most detailed and extensive account of medium- and large-scale African business yet published. Up-to-date and comprehensive, it examines the growth of private enterprise in Nigeria, giving profiles of the country's key entrepreneurs.

Combining ethnographic and historical perspectives, Tom Forrest examines the strategies and patterns of development employed by business people from the colonial period to the present. Through a series of highly readable case studies, he provides a broad picture of the various forms of capital accumulation and sectoral advances in trade, transport, manufacture, agriculture, finance and other services.

These are set within the context of changing economic opportunities, shifts in power and policy, relations with foreign capital, and attitudes towards private business and the state. Not only an invaluable digest of Nigeria's business activity, this important study also challenges existing views about African enterprise and is highly relevant to policymakers concerned with economic development.