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 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 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."--ChicagoTribune "The achievement of Gang Leader for a Day is to give the dry statistics a raw, beating heart."--TheBoston 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 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 Penguin Press "