# Empire of Pain

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/books/empire-of-pain/
- Published: 2022-01-07T15:13:20+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**The gripping and shocking story of three generations of the Sackler family and
their roles in the stories of Valium, Oxycontin and the opioid crisis.**

The Sackler family is one of the richest in the world, and their name adorns the
walls of many famous institutions – Harvard; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Oxford;
the Louvre.

The source of the family fortune was vague, 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, award-winning journalist
and host of the _Wind of Change_ podcast Patrick Radden Keefe exhaustively documents
the jaw-dropping and ferociously compelling reality.

**Shortlisted for the 2021 Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award**

**Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize 2021.**

## Reviews

“Magnificent . . . A masterpiece of storytelling”
**Craig Brown**, _Mail on Sunday_‘
Books of the Year’

“Put simply, this book will make your blood boil . . .”
**John Carreyrou**, author
of _Bad Blood_

 * **[Sackler Trust announces suspension of new UK donations](https://fundraising.co.uk/2019/03/25/sackler-trust-announces-suspension-of-new-uk-donations/)(
   25 March 2019)**

## Comments

### By: HowardLake

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/books/empire-of-pain/#comment-4078
- Published: 2022-01-07T10:34:59+00:00

The story of the Sackler family, including its charitable giving, was featured on
BBC Radio 4:

[https://twitter.com/AgeConcernMRR/status/1479473215974039577](https://twitter.com/AgeConcernMRR/status/1479473215974039577)

### By: HowardLake

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/books/empire-of-pain/#comment-4094
- Published: 2022-01-10T17:14:35+00:00

One response to the Sackler family’s philanthropy?

[https://twitter.com/howardlake/status/1471031188991229958](https://twitter.com/howardlake/status/1471031188991229958)