Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Isaac Sackler lost his businesses in the Great Depression and couldn’t pay for his sons’ education, but he told Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond he’d given them something more valuable than money: “a good name.” That name would one day hang over wings of the Met and the Guggenheim. It would also become shorthand for one of the deadliest corporate scandals in American history. The Sacklers didn’t invent the opioid crisis, but they built the machine that made it possible — and then engineered their own escape from the consequences.

Patrick Radden Keefe on SummaryShelf

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty