Venkatesh - Gang leader for a day: a rogue sociologist takes to the streets
Here you can read online Venkatesh - Gang leader for a day: a rogue sociologist takes to the streets full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. City: New York, year: 2014, publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc., genre: Detective and thriller. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:
Romance novel
Science fiction
Adventure
Detective
Science
History
Home and family
Prose
Art
Politics
Computer
Non-fiction
Religion
Business
Children
Humor
Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.
- Book:Gang leader for a day: a rogue sociologist takes to the streets
- Author:
- Publisher:Penguin Group USA, Inc.
- Genre:
- Year:2014
- City:New York
- Rating:3 / 5
- Favourites:Add to favourites
- Your mark:
Gang leader for a day: a rogue sociologist takes to the streets: summary, description and annotation
We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Gang leader for a day: a rogue sociologist takes to the streets" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.
A New York Times Bestseller Foreword by Stephen J. Dubner, coauthor of Freakonomics When first-year graduate student Sudhir Venkatesh walked into an abandoned building in one of Chicagos 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 JTs 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 gangs complex hierarchical structure. Examining the morally ambiguous, highly intricate, and often corrupt struggle to survive in an urban war zone, Gang Leader for a Day also tells the story of the complicated friendship that develops between Venkatesh and JT--two young and ambitious men a universe apart. 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, unpatronizing portrayal of lives that are ususally ignored or lumped into ill-defined stereotype. --Finanical Times Sudhir Venkateshs latest book Floating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New Yorks Underground Economy--a memoir of sociological investigation revealing the true face of Americas most diverse city--was published in September 2013 by The Penguin Press.
Venkatesh: author's other books
Who wrote Gang leader for a day: a rogue sociologist takes to the streets? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Sudhir Venkatesh
Edward Orozco Flores
Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh
Vanessa R. Panfil
Venkatesh Sudhir Alladi
Sudhir Venkatesh
Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh
Sudhir Venkatesh
Gang leader for a day: a rogue sociologist takes to the streets — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work
Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Gang leader for a day: a rogue sociologist takes to the streets" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.
Light
Font size:
↓
↑
Reset
Interval:
↓
↑
Bookmark:
Make
Table of Contents
ALSO BY SUDHIR VENKATESH
Off the Books:
The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor
The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor
American Project:
The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto
THE PENGUIN PRESS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group
(Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of
Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin
Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell,Victoria 3124,Australia (a division of Pearson
Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,
New Delhi-110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632,
New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd,
24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group
(Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of
Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin
Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell,Victoria 3124,Australia (a division of Pearson
Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,
New Delhi-110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632,
New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd,
24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in 2008 by The Penguin Press,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Copyright Sudhir Venkatesh, 2008
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Venkatesh, Sudhir Alladi.
Gang leader for a day : a rogue sociologist takes to the streets / Sudhir Venkatesh.
p. cm.
Includes index.
Gang leader for a day : a rogue sociologist takes to the streets / Sudhir Venkatesh.
p. cm.
Includes index.
eISBN : 978-1-4406-3189-4
1. GangsIllinoisChicago. 2. African AmericansIllinoisChicago.
3. Chicago (Ill.)Social conditions. 4.Venkatesh, Sudhir Alladi. I. Title.
HV6439.U7C46 2008
364.10660977311dc22
2007040170
3. Chicago (Ill.)Social conditions. 4.Venkatesh, Sudhir Alladi. I. Title.
HV6439.U7C46 2008
364.10660977311dc22
2007040170
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Designed by Claire Vaccaro
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.
http://us.penguingroup.com
To Autry Harrison
FOREWORD
Stephen J. Dubner
I believe that Sudhir Venkatesh was born with two abnormalities: an overdeveloped curiosity and an underdeveloped sense of fear.
How else to explain him? Like thousands upon thousands of people, he entered graduate school one fall and was dispatched by his professors to do some research. This research happened to take him to the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago, one of the worst ghettos in America. But blessed with that outlandish curiosity and unfettered by the sort of commonsensical fear that most of us would experience upon being held hostage by an armed crack gang, as Venkatesh was early on in his research, he kept coming back for more.
I met Venkatesh a few years ago when I interviewed him for Freakonomics, a book I wrote with the economist Steve Levitt. Venkatesh and Levitt had collaborated on several academic papers about the economics of crack cocaine. Those papers were interesting, to be sure, but Venkatesh himself presented a whole new level of fascination. He is soft-spoken and laconic; he doesnt volunteer much information. But every time you ask him a question, it is like tugging a thread on an old tapestry: the whole thing unspools and falls at your feet. Story after story, marked by lapidary detail and hard-won insight: the rogue cop who terrorized the neighborhood, the jerry-built network through which poor families hustled to survive, the time Venkatesh himself became gang leader for a day.
Although we wrote about Venkatesh in Freakonomics (it was many readers favorite part), there wasnt room for any of these stories. Thankfully, he has now written an extraordinary book that details all his adventures and misadventures. The stories he tells are far stranger than fiction, and they are also more forceful, heartbreaking, and hilarious. Along the way he paints a unique portrait of the kind of neighborhood that is badly misrepresented when it is represented at all. Journalists like me might hang out in such neighborhoods for a week or a month or even a year. Most social scientists and dogooders tend to do their work at arms length. But Venkatesh practically lived in this neighborhood for the better part of a decade. He brought the perspective of an outsider and came away with an insiders access. A lot of writing about the poor tends to reduce living, breathing, joking, struggling, sensual, moral human beings to dupes who are shoved about by invisible forces. This book does the opposite. It shows, day by day and dollar by dollar, how the crack dealers, tenant leaders, prostitutes, parents, hustlers, cops, and Venkatesh himself tried to construct a good life out of substandard materials.
As much as I have come to like Venkatesh, and admire him, I probably would not want to be a member of his family: I would worry too much about his fearlessness. I probably wouldnt want to be one of his research subjects either, for his curiosity must be exhausting. But I am very, very happy to have been one of the first readers of Venkateshs book, for it is as extraordinary as he is.
PREFACE
I woke up at about 7:30 A.M. in a crack den, Apartment 1603 in Building Number 2301 of the Robert Taylor Homes. Apartment 1603 was called the Roof, since everyone knew that you could get very, very high there, even higher than if you climbed all the way to the buildings actual rooftop.
As I opened my eyes, I saw two dozen people sprawled about, most of them men, asleep on couches and the floor. No one had lived in the apartment for a while. The walls were peeling, and roaches skittered across the linoleum floor. The activities of the previous nightsmoking crack, drinking, having sex, vomitinghad peaked at about 2:00 A.M. By then the unconscious people outnumbered the conscious onesand among the conscious ones, few still had the cash to buy another hit of crack cocaine. Thats when the Black Kings saw diminishing prospects for sales and closed up shop for the night.
I fell asleep, too, on the floor. I hadnt come for the crack; I was here on a different mission. I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and for my research I had taken to hanging out with the Black Kings, the local crack-selling gang.
It was the sun that woke me, shining through the Roofs doorway. (The door itself had disappeared long ago.) I climbed over the other stragglers and walked down to the tenth floor, where the Patton family lived. During the course of my research, I had gotten to know the Pattonsa law-abiding family, it should be saidand they treated me kindly, almost like a son. I said good morning to Mama Patton, who was cooking breakfast for her husband, Pops, a seventy-year-old retired factory worker. I washed my face, grabbed a slice of cornbread, and headed outside into a breezy, brisk March morning.
Just another day in the ghetto.
Just another day as an outsider looking at life from the inside. Thats what this book is about.
Light
Font size:
↓
↑
Reset
Interval:
↓
↑
Bookmark:
Make
Similar books «Gang leader for a day: a rogue sociologist takes to the streets»
Look at similar books to Gang leader for a day: a rogue sociologist takes to the streets. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.
Sudhir Venkatesh
Edward Orozco Flores
Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh
Vanessa R. Panfil
Venkatesh Sudhir Alladi
Sudhir Venkatesh
Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh
Sudhir Venkatesh
Reviews about «Gang leader for a day: a rogue sociologist takes to the streets»
Discussion, reviews of the book Gang leader for a day: a rogue sociologist takes to the streets and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.