Look out, Oprah! Chavez gives Chomsky a boost
MIT linguist's book gets plug from Venezuelan president; sales soar.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Sales of a little-known critique of U.S. foreign policy have skyrocketed on Amazon.com after firebrand Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez brandished the book in speech to the United Nations on Wednesday.

Noam Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance" moved from the rank of 20,664 Wednesday to No. 4 by Thursday afternoon, according to an Amazon.com spokesman.

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Venezuelan President Chavez holding Chomsky's book.

Noam Chomsky is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguist and prolific critic of U.S. foreign policy.

Chavez was giving a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday in which he called President Bush "the devil."

Sean Sundwall, spokesman for Amazon, said it shows that big events can drive book sales.

"The phenomenon is not new," said Sundwall. "Although it may be new for Chomsky."

The Venezuelan president tore into his U.S. counterpart and his U.N. hosts Wednesday, declaring to the annual meeting of the General Assembly that the U.N. system is "worthless."

"The devil came here yesterday," Chavez said, referring to Bush, who addressed the world body Tuesday from the same lectern. "And it smells of sulfur still today."

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said Wednesday he would not respond to Chavez's speech but characterized it as a "comic-strip approach to international affairs."

CNN contributed to this report

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.