Origins of Chess additional information

I received the following from John McCray, former President of the United States Chess Federation, in regards to my new book, The True Origins of Chess:Ancient Greece-Yes, India-No.

  Thought it might be of interest.

Jerry, I congratulate you on the excellent and valuable research
contained in your book. The research is an important contribution in
itself. As we've discussed before, I consider controversies of invention
versus evolution to be somewhat academic, since all inventions use
previous inventions; and each invention is therefore another step in
evolution. Even biological evolution involves discrete mutations, which
are the natural analogue of inventions.

Chess certainly had earlier games as predecessors. The ideas in those
earlier games would have included specific ideas later found in chess, as
well as more general ideas ( eg the general concepts of capturing,
alternate moves, and avoiding dice.) Research such as that in this book
will illuminate predecessor ideas that later appeared in chess. I think,
though, it is important to remember that many variants of any game would
occur in the general evolutionary process.

One additional point regarding chess is the analogy between its
nomenclature and moves, and actual military strategy. I recently went
through old Chinese writings on war startegy, and was impressed by the
resemblance between the moves of chess pieces and the strengths and
weaknesses of various components, specifically chariots, cavalry, and
infantry in ancient Chinese military theories. There is a chicken-and-egg
question here: did the military nomenclature precede or follow the
development of the analogous piece moves?

I'm uncomfortable posting to Amazon directly. But if you want to wuote(sic)
wnything(sic) I' ve said here anywhere, feel free to do so. Best, John