This fascinating book takes us into a world that most of us will never be privileged – or rather under-privileged enough to see – the housing projects of Chicago’s South Side, where gangs effectively rule, and drugs and violence are endemic. As a new grad student in sociology, Sudhir Venkatesh naively entered the projects to conduct a survey, and found himself held captive by a gang overnight. Fortuitously, though, he met J.T., the gang leader, who had a college education and recognised Sudhir as a source of external validation about his own life, which most others would condemn. J.T. opened up the community to Sudhir – and lets us peek as well into the appalling lives of the project’s residents. We get to see why poverty remains the entrenched way of life – you can’t help but feel that the odds are completely stacked against these people as they struggle to survive from day to day. Recommended as an eye-opener.