Patrick Manning has been one of the leading scholars of African historical demography since the late 1970s. This essay takes stock of his contribution to the field and highlights some of the debates in which Manning has participated over the past forty years. The essay also discusses some of the main challenges of extrapolating African population series into previous centuries, arguing that the models designed by Manning capture the potential negative consequences of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on African population development since 1500 well, but that the next step forward requires methods for estimating the positive effects of the introduction and diffusion of New World food crops in Africa.

自1970年代末以来，帕特里克·曼宁（Patrick Manning）一直是非洲历史人口学的领先学者之一。本文总结了他在该领域的贡献，并重点介绍了曼宁过去40年参与的一些辩论。本文还讨论了将非洲人口序列推算到前几个世纪的一些主要挑战，认为曼宁设计的模型捕获了自1500年以来跨大西洋奴隶贸易对非洲人口发展的潜在负面影响，但下一步前瞻性要求采用方法来估计非洲新世界粮食作物的引进和扩散所产生的积极影响。