<![CDATA[Gang Leader for a Day]]>

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First introduced in Freakonomics, here is the full story of Sudhir Venkatesh, the sociology grad student who infiltrated one of Chicago's most notorious gangs The story of the young sociologist who studied a Chicago crack-dealing gang from the inside captured the world's attention when it was first described in Freakonomics. Gang Leader for a Day is the fascinating full story of how Sudhir Venkatesh managed to gain entrŽe into the gang, what he learned, and how his method revolutionized the academic establishment. When Venkatesh walked into an abandoned building in one of Chicago's most notorious housing projects, he was looking for people to take a multiple-choice survey on urban poverty. A first-year grad student hoping to impress his professors with his boldness, he never imagined that as a result of the assignment he would befriend a gang leader named JT and spend the better part of a decade inside the projects under JT's protection, documenting what he saw there. Over the next seven years, Venkatesh got to know the neighborhood dealers, crackheads, squatters, prostitutes, pimps, activists, cops, organizers, and officials. From his privileged position of unprecedented access, he observed JT and the rest of the gang as they operated their crack-selling business, conducted PR within their community, and rose up or fell within the ranks of the gang's complex organizational structure. In Hollywood-speak, Gang Leader for a Day is The Wire meets Harvard University. It's a brazen, page turning, and fundamentally honest view into the morally ambiguous, highly intricate, often corrupt struggle to survive in what is tantamount to an urban war zone. It is also the story of a complicated friendship between Sudhir and JT-two young and ambitious men a universe apart.

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Gang Leader for a Day

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2 11 false false Tue Apr 22 19:01:52 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 22 19:20:10 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 4 false false Thu Mar 13 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 03 11:30:02 -0800 2008 Fri Mar 14 07:56:06 -0700 2008
Sudhir Venkatesh, while a graduate student in sociology, accident...more...]]> 4 2 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Mar 18 11:52:25 -0700 2008 Fri Mar 21 13:39:12 -0700 2008 Sudhir Venkatesh on the book jacket, in his vintage leather coat with the collar up, arms folded in tough guy stance in front of derelict seeming housing projects slightly ...more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun Sep 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 17 22:00:49 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 29 21:53:07 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Apr 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Feb 07 07:28:22 -0800 2009 Sat Apr 11 16:42:47 -0700 2009
What do people know about the people who lived there? Almost nothing.

People in America need to know more about the lives of poor people. In this book,...more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Jun 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 15 18:26:37 -0700 2008 Sun May 17 18:47:12 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 2 false false Thu Mar 27 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Feb 03 20:17:52 -0800 2008 Thu Mar 27 19:51:53 -0700 2008 Gang Leader for a Day is hands down one of the best books I have ever read. Sudhir Venkatesh, whose research on gangs was first made famous in Freakonomics, wrote this memoir of how he came to become an active observer of the drug trade in Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes (infamous public housing proje...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Feb 24 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 28 19:25:28 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 24 21:31:21 -0800 2008 Freakonomics on why drug dealers live with their mothers was fascinating. For that reason alone I had been looking forward to reading this book. It did not disappoint. I literally could not put this book down.

The book presents an enthralling inside look at life i...more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun Apr 06 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Dec 28 11:55:17 -0800 2007 Mon Apr 07 11:39:30 -0700 2008 Sudhir Venkatesh even before he was featured in Freakonomics, when my husband took Steve Levitt's course, "The Economics of Crime". Ever since I first heard the anecdote of the first-year sociology grad student who showed up to the housing projects on the South Side wi...more...]]> 4 1 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri May 16 10:47:43 -0700 2008 Fri May 16 11:00:51 -0700 2008 Good cops. Bad cops. Drugs. Prostitution. Bu...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Feb 03 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 31 14:17:28 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 03 20:19:38 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Mar 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 26 17:24:50 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 26 17:56:30 -0700 2009 Freakonomics; I have not and consequently this was my introduction to Sudhir Venkatesh's famous/infamous sociological studies. As a graduate student at the University of Chicago, Venkatesh embedded himself into the daily lives of the residents of one of Chicago's poorest pr...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Mar 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 19 18:19:38 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 19 18:31:14 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 03 09:31:38 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 03 10:29:04 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false true Wed Feb 04 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 15:35:24 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 16:56:00 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Feb 01 09:53:23 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 01 10:14:32 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Dec 28 13:40:55 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 28 13:41:38 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Nov 28 11:40:50 -0800 2008 Fri Nov 28 11:40:50 -0800 2008
So I was eagerly awaiting this book (which is s...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Aug 29 18:09:24 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 29 18:23:22 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Aug 04 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 21:49:45 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 22:25:48 -0700 2009
I think some of the criticisms I've read of this book are mostly a matter of how you approach it. Yes, he is a sociologist, but this is n...more...]]>