Empire of Pain

A gripping and shocking story of three generations of the Sackler family, and their roles in the stories of Valium, OxyContin, and the opioid crisis. Inspired by the Netflix series *Painkiller*, starring Uzo Aduba and Matthew Broderick. A Sunday Times bestseller. Winner of the 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. A BBC Radio 4 “Book of the Week.” A 2021 Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year finalist. One of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2021. A Crime Writers’ Association Golden Dagger finalist for Non-Fiction. “I thoroughly enjoyed *Empire of Pain*… It is a masterclass in compelling non-fiction.” – Elizabeth Day, The Guardian “30 Best Summer Books” “You feel almost guilty for enjoying it so much” – The Times The Sackler name adorns the walls of many venerable institutions – Harvard; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Oxford; the Louvre. They are one of the world's richest families, known for their generous donations to the arts and sciences. However, the source of the family's wealth was a mystery, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for the manufacture and marketing of OxyContin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis—an international epidemic of drug addiction that has claimed nearly half a million lives. In this masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, award-winning journalist and host of the Wind of Change podcast, Patrick Radden Cave, comprehensively documents this stunning and profoundly powerful reality. Empire of Pain is the story of a dynasty: a parable about greed in the 21st century.