Download Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets AudioBook Free
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 initially described in Freakonomics. Gang Leader for a Day is the fascinating full story of how Sudhir Venkatesh managed to gain entrance into the gang, what he learned, and exactly 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 folks to take a multiple-choice survey on urban poverty. A first-year grad student hoping to impress his professors along with his boldness, he never imagined that consequently of the assignment he would befriend a gang leader named JT and spend the better part of ten years inside the projects under JT's protection, documenting what he saw there.
Over another 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 all of those other 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. From the brazen, page turning, and fundamentally honest view into the morally ambiguous, highly intricate, often corrupt battle to survive in what's tantamount for an urban war zone. It is also the storyplot of a complicated friendship between Sudhir and JT-two young and ambitious men a universe apart.
