ABSTRACT
Demographers andhistorians have largely ignored the past of African populations. The passionate discussion of the present, however, is being pursued in ignorance of the past. The most dramatic example of overly simplistic analysis is the facile linking of the African food crisis—and more generally the crisis of international confidence in Africa's ability to "develop"—to the rapid growth of Africa's population. The model specifies neither the timing of the phases nor the causes for the decline in mortality and fertility. Demographic transition theory, born of European experience, has profoundly influenced thinking about population change in the Third World. The principal goal of this collection is not to refute demographic transition theory, but rather to show that population changes are historical processes, which vary from one period and one society to another. Population change is the combined result of births and deaths, and of immigration and emigration, two sets of additions and two of subtractions, from the total numbers of a society.
