At President Obama’s meeting with the heads of South American countries this morning, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stood, walked over to him, and presented him with a copy of “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent” by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano.
Obama politely posed for a photograph with Chavez, shook his hand, and accepted the gift.
The book, first published in Spanish in 1971, offers a critique of the consequences of 500 years of European and U.S. colonization of Latin America.
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At the start of the first plenary session at the Summit of the Americas later this morning, President Obama was asked what he thought of Chavez’s gift.
“You know, I thought it was one of Chavez’s books,” Obama answered. “I was going to give him one of mine.”