Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets
Sign in to keep track of books you’ve read and want to read.
A New York TimesBestseller
Foreword by Stephen J. Dubner, coauthor of Freakonomics
When first-year graduate student Sudhir Venkatesh walked into an abandoned building in one of Chicago's most notorious housing projects, he hoped to find a few people willing to take a multiple-choice survey on urban poverty—and impress his professors with his boldness. He never imagined that as a result of this assignment he would befriend a gang leader named JT and spend the better part of a decade embedded inside the projects under JT's protection. From a privileged position of unprecedented access, Venkatesh observed JT and the rest of his gang as they operated their crack-selling business, made peace with their neighbors, evaded the law, and rose up or fell within the ranks of the gang's complex hierarchical structure. Examining the morally ambiguous, highly intricate, and often corrupt struggle to survive in an urban war zone, Gang Leader for a Dayalso tells the story of the complicated friendship that develops between Venkatesh and JT—two young and ambitious men a universe apart.
Read more
"Riveting." —The New York Times
"Compelling... dramatic...Venkatesh gives readers a window into a way of life that few Americans understand." —Newsweek
"An eye-opening account into an underserved city within the city." —Chicago Tribune
"The achievement of Gang Leader for a Day is to give the dry statistics a raw, beating heart."—The Boston Globe
"A rich portrait of the urban poor,drawn not from statistics but from viivd tales of their lives and his, and how they intertwined." —The Economist
"A sensative, sympathetic, unpatronizingportrayal of lives that are ususally ignored or lumped into ill-defined stereotype." —Finanical Times
Sudhir Venkatesh's latest book Floating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York's Underground Economy—a memoir of sociological investigation revealing the true face of America's most diverse city—was published in September 2013 by The Penguin Press
Liked Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets? Here’s where I’d start.
These suit anyone who liked Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.
-
There are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America Shares nonfiction, sociology, Chicago -
Project Fatherhood: A Story of Courage and Healing in One of America's Toughest Communities Shares nonfiction, sociology, memoir -
Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City Shares nonfiction, sociology, ethnography -
Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago Shares nonfiction, sociology, Chicago
