Port of Spain (Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies), Apr. 19 : Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez who once famously referred to former US President George W Bush as "the devil," put his animosity towards Washington on the backburner and presented gifts to Bush's successor Barack Obama on the sidelines of the fifth Summit of the Americas meeting here on Saturday.

Chavez presented Obama with a copy of a book called "The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent". The book is a famed Uruguayan journalist''s treatise on foreign exploitation of the region.

Chavez said he signed it, "For Obama, with warm regards."

"It''s an extraordinary book that helped me understand Latin America when I was young, our history, our reality," said Chavez, who apparently gave Obama a copy of the book in Spanish - a language he doesn''t speak.

It wasn''t clear whether Obama would delve into the tome soon, if at all.

"I thought it was one of Chavez''s books. I was going to give him one of mine," Obama said. (ANI)