Chávez creates overnight bestseller with book gift to Obama

"Our defeat was always implicit in the victory of others; our wealth has always generated our poverty by nourishing the prosperity of others."

In my political education Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano holds a central place. I can still remember the sensation I felt when I first read it years ago: the strange & heady vertigo one feels when the world is turned upside-down. Ever since, I have tried to get everyone I know to read it.

Now, Hugo Chávez has re-introduced this essential work to the world with really nothing more than a simple gesture: giving someone a book. I can only hope that Obama will read it. But even if he doesn't, Chávez's gift has ensured that thousands more surely will. That's good enough for me.

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