[R-G] Media Discover 'Obscure' Latin American Book

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.fair.org/blog/2009/04/20/media-discover-obscure-latin-american-book/

Media Discover 'Obscure' Latin American Book
04/20/2009 by Isabel Macdonald

When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave U.S. President Barack Obama  
a copy of Eduardo Galeano's book The Open Veins of Latin America: Five  
Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent at last weekend's Summit of  
the Americas, the corporate media appeared to be caught off guard.

In its initial report, CNN (Newsroom, 4/18/09) appeared to be  
completely unaware of Galeano's classic 1971 treatise on the history  
of European and U.S. imperialism in Latin America, failing to correct  
Obama's initial mistaken belief that the book was penned by Chavez  
himself.

Both CNN (CNN Newsroom, 4/18/09) and AP (4/19/09) contrasted the  
immediate surge in the book's sales on Amazon with its previous  
"obscurity":

     It's gone from obscurity to bestseller overnight. In just hours,  
it zoomed to No. 14 on Amazon.com's bestseller list, and on Friday, it  
was ranked number 60,280, making its way to the top of the list very  
fast.--CNN, 4/18/09

     The publicity about the gift of the Galeano book helped propel it  
from relative obscurity to No. 13 on the Amazon.com list of  
bestsellers by Saturday night.--AP, 4/19/09

The book may not have ranked highly a month ago on Amazon, but it can  
hardly be described as "obscure." A classic Latin American history  
text that was banned by several military dictatorships, with its  
author "forced into exile as the book grew in popularity," according  
to the New Yorker, the book boasts more than 50 Spanish editions, and  
has been translated into more than a dozen languages. As demonstrated  
by Chavez's choice, it still has currency with Latin American  
political leaders.