| Edition |
First edition. |
| Description |
xii, 535 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
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text txt rdacontent |
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unmediated n rdamedia |
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volume nc rdacarrier |
| Note |
Genealogical table on lining papers. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 446-515) and index. |
| Contents |
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. |
| 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 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. Empire of Pain begins with the story of three doctor brothers, Raymond, Mortimer and the incalculably energetic Arthur, who weathered the poverty of the Great Depression and appalling anti-Semitism. Working at a barbaric mental institution, Arthur saw a better way and conducted groundbreaking research into drug treatments. He also had a genius for marketing, especially for pharmaceuticals, and bought a small ad firm. Arthur devised the marketing for Valium, and built the first great Sackler fortune. He purchased a drug manufacturer, Purdue Frederick, which would be run by Raymond and Mortimer. The brothers began collecting art, and wives, and grand residences in exotic locales. Their children and grandchildren grew up in luxury. Forty years later, Raymond's son Richard ran the family-owned Purdue. The template Arthur Sackler created to sell Valium--co-opting doctors, influencing the FDA, downplaying the drug's addictiveness--was employed to launch a far more potent product: OxyContin. The drug went on to generate some thirty-five billion dollars in revenue, and to launch a public health crisis in which hundreds of thousands would die. |
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This is the saga of three generations of a single family and the mark they would leave on the world, a tale that moves from the bustling streets of early twentieth-century Brooklyn to the seaside palaces of Greenwich, Connecticut, and Cap d'Antibes to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. Empire of Pain chronicles the multiple investigations of the Sacklers and their company, and the scorched-earth legal tactics that the family has used to evade accountability. The history of the Sackler dynasty is rife with drama--baroque personal lives; bitter disputes over estates; fistfights in boardrooms; glittering art collections; Machiavellian courtroom maneuvers; and the calculated use of money to burnish reputations and crush the less powerful. 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. -- Provided by publisher. |
| Subject |
Sackler family.
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Sackler, Arthur M. -- Family.
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Rich people -- United States -- Biography.
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Purdue Pharma L.P. -- History.
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Oxycodone -- History.
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Pharmaceutical industry -- Marketing.
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Pharmaceutical industry -- Corrupt practices.
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Sackler family. (OCoLC)fst02028789
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Sackler, Arthur M. (OCoLC)fst00064714
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Oxycodone. (OCoLC)fst01049613
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Families. (OCoLC)fst01728849
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Pharmaceutical industry -- Corrupt practices.
(OCoLC)fst01060133
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Pharmaceutical industry -- Marketing.
(OCoLC)fst01060160
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Rich people. (OCoLC)fst01097537
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United States (DNLM)D014481 |
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United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
|
| Genre/Form |
History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
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Biographies. (OCoLC)fst01919896
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Family histories. (OCoLC)fst01919924
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Family histories.
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Biographies.
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| Added Title |
Secret history of the Sackler dynasty |
| ISBN |
9780385545686 (hardcover) |
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9780385545693 (electronic book) |
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9780385547741 (electronic book) |
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0385545681 (hardcover) |
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