The big winner out of this week’s Summit of the Americas in Trinidad may be a decades-old book about the exploitation of Latin American people throughout history. Eduardo Galeano’s history book enjoyed a 466,378-per cent increase in popularity on Amazon.com.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose anti-US rhetoric has included calling former President George W Bush the devil, approached Obama on Friday and handed him a copy of Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. In just hours, the book, by Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, rocketed to bestseller status on online book store Amazon.com.

The English version was at No 11 on the site’s list of top sellers on Saturday night. On Friday, it had been No 60,280. It was at least the second time Obama and Chavez spoke at a summit, during which Obama made overtures to improve US relations with many of its Latin American neighbours. After receiving the gift, Obama jokingly said he thought it was a book Chavez had written. “I was going to give him one of mine,” he quipped.

- CNN