Empire of Pain

Patrick Radden Keefe traces three generations of the Sackler family, from Arthur Sackler’s invention of modern pharmaceutical marketing through Purdue Pharma’s launch of OxyContin and the campaign to insist it was not addictive. The family’s name meanwhile went onto museum wings and university buildings across the world. Keefe reported it against sustained legal pressure, and the book is meticulous about the distance between what the company knew and what it said.