Sales Soar Of Book Chavez Gave Obama

ABC News:

Just after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave President Obama a present this morning of a book that criticizes the role of the United States in Latin America -- "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano -- its Amazon sales rank was No. 54,295.

Read the whole story: ABC News

Comments

[LuxSF]

03:02 PM on 04/20/2009

If in order to gain knowledge about Latin America you need to read that book, you can consider yourself pathetic! Please, start with a map, then a little history, once you have learn the capitals, feel free to start trying to name the presidents of each country. It's amazing how many times I have people asking me where Caracas is. It's unfortunate that my country is now popular because of this corrupt "caudillo" that we have in power. There is a lot to learn about Latin America and believe, you do not need that book.

[PazPraSempre]

11:18 PM on 04/19/2009

Awesome it's a great book with info that probably most Americans aren't aware of.

[tango2]

11:56 PM on 04/19/2009

You got that right, They hardly can spell their own names

Galeano is an excellent writter

[KillBillV2]

10:10 PM on 04/19/2009

I heard it's at #2 now.

[slithers]

10:17 PM on 04/19/2009

It's sure to be a best seller among wealthy suburban white kids, college students, journalists and hollywood elitists who have never held a labor related jobs.

[BarackstarObama]

11:57 PM on 04/19/2009

Yep, it's #2, maybe #1 tomorrow.

[Dark Sphere]

10:10 PM on 04/19/2009

Mark Levin's book, Liberty and Tyranny is #1, and it will remain that way for quite some time...

[Dark Sphere]

09:58 PM on 04/19/2009

Latin communist manifesto. What is it with the left's obsession with socialist dictators? It is absolutely ridiculous. Just shows the naive actions of those on the left from Truman, to Carter, to Clinton to now Obama...

[hopefull2008]

10:12 PM on 04/19/2009

... and what's with all the reading that they are doing ? All they need to know is on Rush and Fox, right ?

[berryessence]

11:39 PM on 04/19/2009

oh yes,

Because Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43 was so upstanding people

Iran-Contra

S & L Scandal

Desert Storm

9/11

Torture

may I need to go on

[slithers]

09:33 PM on 04/19/2009

The problems in latin america are the fault of the latin americans. Socialism is always looking for someone to blame because it never gets better... just a slow downward fall.

[PazPraSempre]

11:16 PM on 04/19/2009

Um what about the US' invasion of Panama? Or its help in kicking democratically elected Salvador Allende out and replacing him with dictator Augusto Pinochet?
I suggest you read a history book first. And for your information, most Latin American nations are not socialist.

[slithers]

11:34 PM on 04/19/2009

Democratically elected socialists is still socialism. People tent to vote away their individual liberties for some cushy heart warming promise from politicians that they will be cared by society.

Panama was a different story. We build and owned (at the time) the Panama canal.

[Hirnlego]

11:41 AM on 04/20/2009

Interventionism hasn't exactly helped. Why can't they do have the right to self govern?
If it fail, then it fails. If it succeeds then it succeeds.

[GBO]

09:21 PM on 04/19/2009

That's the Obama touch!!!

[JakeMontero]

08:07 PM on 04/19/2009

Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent > sears catalog

[tango2]

11:53 PM on 04/19/2009

I read books from Eduardo Galeano, and an excellent writter

The question is...Did you ever read, do you know how?

[Dupree]

07:18 PM on 04/19/2009

I have not read this book but I would not be so quick to dismiss it either. As one that is of African/Native American descent...I have read the sanitized version of our history books that diffuse the parts that put America in a bad light and that including calling Native Americans..."savages." And yet my people were the one that given blankets with small pox to kill us off for our land. My people were lied to and had their land ripped from their custody and assigned to reservations. And yet we were called "savages." Now, I love this country with a bitter sweet taste in my mouth. I am glad to be an American...but to pretend we do not have dirt underneath our nails and that we have participated in unethical practices would be an attempt to rewrite history and remake our origin to be whitewashed clean ...like Christ once said...white tombs stones...looking pretty on the outside while being a place where dead bones dwelt.

[TheMuckraker]

05:30 PM on 04/19/2009

"Confessions of an Economic Hitman" also tells of American hegemony.

I hope the president has already read Naomi Klein's, ""The Shock Doctrine"".

[BlackSwan13]

08:33 PM on 04/19/2009

Both good books.

[harriscrl3]

03:02 PM on 04/20/2009

Love Confessions of an Economic Hitman

Carol

[TheImpaler]

05:16 PM on 04/19/2009

Funny, this is what I wrote yesterday in response to another post:

"Good for Galeano! I never heard of him or his work, now I'm definitely going to buy the book! Remember what happened to one of Chomsky's books when Chavez mention it as "must read", it sells skyrocketed! Chavez is good for books, he is like Oprah except he recommends smart books! Sorry all Oprah fans :-)"

[BlackSwan13]

08:33 PM on 04/19/2009

Good Post.

[sandiegoconservative]

08:40 PM on 04/19/2009

Chomsky has yet to write something of any use to warrant the $15-$30 or more you will pay for it.

This book was an ok read, but nothing to be really excited about. It took awhile longer to read it because I wanted to get the non-translated version, but it was so-so.

[Weirdwriter]

04:42 PM on 04/19/2009

Reading elsewhere that the copy of the book was in Spanish. Did it not dawn on Mr.Chavez that the reason President Obama needed a translator is that he has only rather more Spanish than Mr. Chavez has English?

[gorgol]

04:31 PM on 04/19/2009

Perhaps Americans will no longer ignore the truth about our "messing" with other governments....our hands are dirty, our hands are bloody, our hands are corrupt. Now we are tasting the fruit of the nasty side of Americas power elite...Washington, Wall Street. It takes millions to lose their jobs and their savings...to wake up to the stench.

[manitoumackinac]

03:00 PM on 04/19/2009

I recommend "Latin America's Wars" by Robert L. Scheina. It's a two volume work that highlights all the military conflict in Latin America since the conquest. It's a wonderful academic chronicle where the author does not fixate on the US role in the region (for those who are worried about bias). Its simply a chronological account of each conflict and who was involved. Yet, I think by reading this work it's very easy to conclude that the USA has not treated that part of the world very well.

[HarlemFreeThought]

02:59 PM on 04/19/2009

Eduardo Galeano: the open veins of McWorld
interview with Niels Boel.
The right to choose one’s own food
The perfect symbol of globalization is the success of firms like McDonald’s, which opens five new restaurants around the world each day. For me there is something more significant than the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was the queue of Russians outside McDonald’s on Moscow’s Red Square as the so-called “iron curtain”—which turned out be more like a “mashed potato curtain”— was coming down.
The “McDonaldization” of the world is planting plastic food in the four corners of the planet. But the success of McDonald’s has at the same time inflicted a kind of open wound on one of the most basic human rights, the right to choose our own food. The stomach is part of the human soul. The mouth is its gateway. Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you who you are. It’s not about how much you eat but what and how you choose to do so. How people prepare food is an important part of their cultural identity. It matters greatly to poor or even very poor people, who have little or no food but who respect traditions that turn the trivial act of barely eating into a small ritual.
http://www.unesco.org/courier/2001_01/uk/dires.htm