Gang Leader For A Day, Sudhir Venkatesh
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Whilst studying for his PhD. in sociology at the University of Chicago, Sudhir Venkateshchose to take a slightly different route to studying poverty in large American cities. Instead of burying himself in books and census reports, Venkatesh ventured into the projects surrounding the university campus and befriended one of the leaders of the Black Kings, a infamous Chicago organized crime ring that, at the time, controlled a significant portion of crack trafficking in Chicago’s poor black neighborhoods. The book is effectively a story version of the research Venkatesh conducted to form is PhD. dissertation, but is an almost Hollywood-like adventure through the annals of the gang underworld in the Chicago projects of the 90s.
Venkatesh went on to become an acclaimed scholar of sociology, first at Harvard and then to Columbia University, where he is currently a professor.