Stolen Legacy

by George G.M. James

Book Overview

First published in 1954, "Stolen Legacy" is the thought-provoking and controversial book by George G. M. James, a Guyanese-American historian and author. James makes the argument that Greek philosophy originated in Ancient Egypt, rather than Greece and was stolen and used without acknowledgement by Greek philosophers. In support of his premise, James contends that when Alexander the Great invaded Egypt and sacked the Royal Library at Alexandria...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1420962035
• ISBN13: 9781420962031
• Release Date: June 2019
• Publisher: Digireads.com
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A study of the DNA of ancient Greeks shows they were black African

Read this Scientific Article: HLA genes in Macedonians and the sub-Saharan origin of the Greeks: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1034/j.1399-0039.2001.057002118.x ------ 3) Greeks are found to have a substantial relatedness to sub-Saharan (Ethiopian) people, which separate them from other Mediterranean groups. Both Greeks and Ethiopians share quasi-specific DRB1 alleles, such as *0305, *0307, *0411, *0413, *0416, *0417, *0420, *1110, *1112, *1304 and *1310. Genetic distances are closer between Greeks and Ethiopian/sub-Saharan groups than to any other Mediterranean group and finally Greeks cluster with Ethiopians/sub-Saharans in both neighbour joining dendrograms and correspondence analyses. The time period when these relationships might have occurred was ancient but uncertain and might be related to the displacement of Egyptian-Ethiopian people living in pharaonic Egypt ---------------

Dedication/Review From the Internet by RUNOKO RASHIDI

THE GLOBAL AFRICAN COMMUNITY H I S T O R Y N O T E S By RUNOKO RASHIDI DEDICATED TO DR. PETER DAWSON AND DR. ALFRED M. LIGON ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following information will be of interest to all who appreciate the work of George G. M. James. As we all know, very little is published about Professor James. The following information came to me via the Internet. I have decided to republish it here because it has some precious information about Prof. James. This information is quite appropriate to describe the book that i first reprinted in 1989 - long after the death of Mr. James. But since i was the first publisher to 'mass' produce, and satisfy the great demand for the book, it is the only one in print that also has a photograph of the Author. [...] "The term Greek philosophy, to begin with, is a misnomer, for there is no such philosophy in existence." Dr. George Granville Monah James was born in Georgetown, Guyana, South America. He was the son of Reverend Linch B. and Margaret E. James. George G.M. James earned Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Theology and Master of Arts degrees from Durham University in England and was a candidate there for the D. Litt degree. He conducted research at London University and did postgraduate work at Columbia University where he read for his Ph.D. Dr. James earned a teaching certificate in the State of New York to teach mathematics, Latin and Greek. James later served as Professor of Logic and Greek at Livingston College in Salisbury, North Carolina for two years, and eventually taught at the University of Arkansas, Pine Bluff. Dr. James was the author of the widely circulated Stolen Legacy: The Greeks Were Not the Authors of Greek Philosophy, But the People of North Africa, Commonly Called the Egyptians--a controversial text originally published in 1954 and reprinted a number of times since. Professor William Leo Hansberry reviewed Stolen Legacy in the Journal of Negro Education in 1955, and noted that: "In Stolen Legacy an author with a passion for justice and truth champions a startling thesis with which most of the little volume's readers--Hellenophiles in particular--will no doubt strongly disagree. In this work Professor James dares to contend and labor to prove, among others, that 'the Greeks were not the authors of Greek philosophy', that 'so-called Greek philosophy' was based in the main upon ideas and concepts which were borrowed without acknowledgement--indeed 'stolen'--by a few wayward and dishonest Greeks from the ancient Egyptians." Stolen Legacy was written during Dr. James' tenure at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. As of today, there is not even a copy of the book in the University library. There is no statue or bust of Dr. James on the campus. There is no plaque of Dr. James adorning the campus walls. There is not even a certificate to note Dr. James' existence or that he even lived. This is at an historic

African Origins of Greek Thought: From "sb3" to "filosophia"

Forgive us, if we briefly redirect the dicussion of the Stolen Legacy toward that of a more SCIENTIFIC nature namely, comparative history and historical linguistics. James was a professor of Latin and Greek as well as Greek Philosophy, so he was familar with the Greek thought in the language that it was written. He did not know Egyptian however. Nevertheless, to truly critique this work, a true scholar should do just what James did--look at the historical context in which Greek thought was developed, consult actual Greek sources concerning who chronicled the works of the so-called Greek philosphers, and search for the anteriority of the ideas that the Greeks presented. Greek philosphy was born not on the Greek mainland but in Ionia, as we know, with Thales in the 6th century. Bertrand Russel writes, however:"Thales is said to have travelled in Egypt, and to have thence brought to the Greeks the science of geometry. What Egyptians knew of geometry was mainly rules of thumb, and there is no reason to believe that Thales arrived at deductive proofs, such as later Greeks discovered." The Minoans and the Cretians did not philosphize. The Dorians didn't philosophize. From the 12th to the 6th century, Greece was in a state of military turmoil. Moreover, it was a veritable slavocracy--with wealthy landowners holding the rites to the knowledge of patriarchial gods, philosophizing was forbidden 80% of the population (peasants, medics, and slavs). It truly would have been a miracle for the common Greek to philosophize. Egypt created a 2000 years intellectual tradition that all the Greeks acknowledged. For example, Aristotle states that Egypt was the cradle of arts and science; he mentions that the Egyptians were the first men. Diodorus Siculus, Herodotus, Isocrates, Plato, to name a few, recongnized that egyptian knowledge was a the genesis of arts, science, and religion. Indeed the African Eypto-Nubians philosophized on the nature of existence(being), the inhabited world, al! l that is. They developed arts, science, literature, and yes philosophy. James compares the ancient Egyptian corpus of knowledge--the Memphite Theology, and the Eyptian "mysteries"--with the Greek thought. To sum up, very briefly, Greek thought is not anterior to "europe". Egyptian "sba" or learning (mysteries) written by African "sesh" (at Temple of Edfou, Heirokronpolis, Naucratus, Memphis, and so on) is the genesis of knowledge or gnosis in the ancient world. The Ionians inherited this and transmitted to Greece, Greek traveled to Egypt to collect Egyptian learning. This is what James attempts to show this using only the Greek record and its egyptian antecedants. George G. M. James could not have more correct to state that Greek "philsophy" doesn't exist because the word "philosophy" is not Greek. As Theophile Obenga points out (and martin bernal) the word "philsophy" is not a greek word and is not of indo-european origin. Briefly:"philo" or "filo-" meaning "one wh