Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
4.5/5
Goodreads

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

Written by Patrick Radden Keefe
Paperback
$18.00
$17.10
640
Page count
Oct 18, 2022
Publication date

Buy from other retailers

AmazonBookshop

What's This Book About

Publisher Summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR - A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin. From the prize-winning and bestselling author of Say Nothing. “A real-life version of the HBO series Succession with a lethal sting in its tail…a masterful work of narrative reportage.” - Laura Miller, Slate The history of the Sackler dynasty is rife with drama–baroque personal lives; bitter disputes over estates; fistfights in boardrooms; glittering art collections; Machiavellian courtroom maneuvers; and the calculated use of money to burnish reputations and crush the less powerful. The Sackler name has adorned the walls of many storied institutions–Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, but the source of the family fortune was vague–until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing a blockbuster painkiller that was the catalyst for the opioid crisis. Empire of Pain is the saga of three generations of a single family and the mark they would leave on the world, a tale that moves from the bustling streets of early twentieth-century Brooklyn to the seaside palaces of Greenwich, Connecticut, and Cap d’Antibes to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. It follows the family’s early success with Valium to the much more potent OxyContin, marketed with a ruthless technique of co-opting doctors, influencing the FDA, downplaying the drug’s addictiveness. Empire of Pain chronicles the multiple investigations of the Sacklers and their company, and the scorched-earth legal tactics that the family has used to evade accountability. A masterpiece of narrative reporting, Empire of Pain is a ferociously compelling portrait of America’s second Gilded Age, a study of impunity among the super-elite and a relentless investigation of the naked greed that built one of the world’s great fortunes.

What Kind of Book is Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

Topics

Genres

Reviews

    Book Lists That Include This Book

    The Creative Behind the Book

    What Has Patrick Radden Keefe Said About This Book

    Nothing yet! Let Patrick Radden Keefe know that you want to hear from them about their book.

    Other Books You Might Enjoy If You Liked This Book

      chapter • 576 Pages
      The Poisonwood Bible
      Barbara Kingsolver
      chapter • 672 Pages
      The Name of the Wind
      6.0
      #1 in Series
      Patrick Rothfuss
      chapter • 544 Pages
      All the Light We Cannot See
      Anthony Doerr
      chapter • 729 Pages
      Roots: The Saga of an American Family
      Alex Haley
      chapter • 688 Pages
      Dune
      Frank Herbert
      chapter • 608 Pages
      The Nightingale
      Kristin Hannah
      chapter • 688 Pages
      The Shining
      Stephen King
      chapter • 624 Pages
      Crime and Punishment
      Fyodor Dostoevsky
      chapter • 648 Pages
      The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
      Graphic Nov.
      Michael Chabon
      chapter • 576 Pages
      Sophie's Choice
      William Styron
      View more

    Book Details

    ISBN
    9781984899019
    Publication Date
    October 18, 2022
    Publisher
    Anchor Books
    Page Count
    640
    Audience
    Adult

    Contribute to this page

    Core Score - 30%

    Still needs the basics.

    Depth Score - 9%

    Just the barebones.

    Improve this page

    Are you the author or illustrator? Claim your book.

    Top Contributors
    01
    @elainethelibrarian
    5

    Bookroo

    Book Clubs

    Follow Bookroo