Denise, I think your critiques are on-point, but Venkatesh addresses many of your questions throughout his work (including underscoring how patronizing and stupid his original survey was — he often highlights the disconnect between “ivory tower survey methodology” and the its disconnect from the lives of real people on the ground). The NYT review is fairly cursory and doesn’t really examine this book in the context of his other work; instead it relishes its disdain for the “glorification of the gangster lifestyle.” I don’t know that that’s a fair assessment of the sum of his work.

Fiddlesticks. Maybe you can call them back?

To anyone curious, the film rights for the book were sold before the book hit store shelves.

100 rupees that Dr. Venkatesh’s role is played by Kal Penn.

It’s set up at Paramount with director Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan) in talks to direct.

denise, i think you (and others) have raised fair questions about this book; at the same time though you all should also read his other two works (both of which deal with the residents, and not gang members). you should also do some background research on his scholarship (i.e. read some of his papers) before passing hasty judgments on him based on this one book. in fact i guarantee that you will get answers to most of your questions.

Word! Although he is simultaneously disproving his hypothesis that both the top dog, Levitt, and the foot soldiers like him can’t make good