I've had to read part of another book of hers, Day of Empire, for a class I'm taking. The professor brought up this controversy she's gotten into with her newest book on the day he assigned the reading, since there'd been a New York Times editorial criticizing it that day.
I read the editorial, a bit of what Amy Chua said responding to it, and a lot of the online comments. My bet is that she wrote all of the hyperbolic statements that people are saying are crazy now with a mind to stir up exactly this kind of controversy that she's stirred up. It's free media attention, and in these trying times it's getting harder and harder for Yale law professors to make their yacht and mountain house payments, so who's to blame her for it?
That said, what she's arguing isn't even that extreme at the core. Amy Chua is not the first to say that North American children are self-centered and their parents spoil them.