Patrick Radden Keefe, Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

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, by the prize-winning, bestselling author of Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe.

Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling. It is a portrait of the excesses of America’s second Gilded Age, a study of impunity among the super elite and a relentless investigation of the naked greed and indifference to human suffering that built one of the world’s great fortunes.

Presented in partnership with Solid State Books.

Speakers:

Patrick Radden Keefe
2017 Eric & Wendy Schmidt Fellow, New America
Author, Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

Rachel Aviv
2019 Eric & Wendy Schmidt Fellow, New America
Staff Writer, the New Yorker