Empire of pain : the secret history of the Sackler dynasty Cover Image

Large Print Book

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

Keefe, Patrick Radden, 1976- (author.).

Summary:

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. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing a blockbuster painkiller that was the catalyst for the opioid crisis. -- jacket.

The Sacklers are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations to 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 a blockbuster painkiller that was the catalyst for the opioid crisis. Keefe begins with the three doctor brothers, Raymond, Mortimer and Arthur, who weathered the poverty of the Great Depression and appalling anti-Semitism. Working at a barbaric mental institution, Arthur conducted groundbreaking research into drug treatments, devised the marketing for Valium, and built the first great Sackler fortune. Forty years later the template he created to sell Valium was employed to launch a far more potent product: OxyContin. -- adapted from back cover.

Record details

ISBN: 9780593416280
ISBN: 0593416287
Physical Description: xii, 974 pages (large print) ; 24 cm
Edition: First large print edition.
Publisher: New York : Random House Large Print, [2021]
Copyright: ©2021

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [757]-926) and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

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 -- Un-naming -- Afterword.