Chavez speech boosts Chomsky book sales

updated 8:11 p.m. ET Sept. 21, 2006

NEW YORK - The U.N. address by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has had an unexpected impact — on the best-seller lists of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.

At the start of his talk Wednesday, during which Chavez referred to President Bush as “the devil,” Chavez held up a book by Noam Chomsky, “Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance,” and recommended it to everyone in the General Assembly, as well as to the American people.

“The people of the United States should read this ... instead of the watching Superman movies,” Chavez later told reporters.

As of Thursday afternoon, “Hegemony or Survival,” originally published in 2003, had jumped into the top 10 of Amazon, where it was ranked 20,664 the day before, and Barnes & Noble.com, from a previous ranking of 748.

Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt, has ordered an additional paperback printing of 25,000 copies.

Chomsky, the famed 77-year-old linguist, has long been an opponent of U.S. foreign policy. His many books include “9-11,” a best-selling collection of interviews, and “Failed States,” which came out last spring.

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