Empire of pain : the secret history of the Sackler dynasty / Patrick Radden Keefe.

  • Keefe, Patrick Radden, 1976-
Date:
2021
  • Books

About this work

Description

The Sackler name adorns 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, known for their lavish donations in the arts and the sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing Oxycontin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis-an international epidemic of drug addiction which has killed nearly half a million people. In this masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, Patrick Radden Keefe exhaustively documents the jaw-dropping and ferociously compelling reality. Empire of Pain is the story of a dynasty - a parable of 21st century greed.

Publication/Creation

London : Picador, 2021.

Physical description

xii, 535 pages : genealogical table ; 24 cm

Notes

Simultaneously published: New York : Doubleday, [2021].

Bibliographic information

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Prologue: The taproot -- Patriarch. A good name ; The asylum ; Med man ; Penicillin for the blues ; China fever ; The octopus ; The Dendur derby ; Estrangement ; Ghost marks ; To thwart the inevitability of death -- Dynasty. Apollo ; Heir apparent ; Matter of Sackler ; The ticking clock ; God of dreams ; H-bomb ; Sell, sell, sell ; Ann Hedonia ; The Pablo Escobar of the new millennium ; Take the fall -- Legacy. Turks ; Tamperproof ; Ambassadors ; It's a hard truth, ain't it ; Temple of greed ; Warpath ; Named defendants ; The phoenix ; Unnaming -- Afterword.

Awards note

Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, 2021

Type/Technique

Languages

Where to find it

  • LocationStatus
    History of Medicine
    BZP (Sackler)
    Open shelves

Permanent link

Identifiers

ISBN

  • 9781529062489
  • 9781529063073