Why am I passionate about this?
As a historian of science and medicine, Iām fascinated by the many ways that drugsāfrom tea to opiates, Prozac to psychedelicsāhave shaped our world. After all, there are few adults on the planet today who donāt regularly consume substances that have been classified as a drug at one time or another (Iām looking at you, coffee and tea!). The books Iāve selected here have deeply influenced my own thinking on the history of drugs over the past decade, from my first book, The Age of Intoxication, to my new book on the history of psychedelic science.
Benjamin's book list on the history of drugs
Why did Benjamin love this book?
In this tour-de-force work of investigative journalism, New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe traces the sordid history of the Sackler dynasty, the billionaire family behind Purdue Pharmaceuticals and its blockbuster narcotic painkiller OxyContin.
With both narrative verve and moral urgencyāa combination that isnāt always easy to pull offāthis book exposes one of the many points of origin for Americaās devastating opioid epidemic. Keefeās work has reinforced my conviction that drug historians have an important role to play in shaping public understanding and policy debates around these substances in the present. I found this book to be a page-turner and one of the most thoughtful books Iāve read in years.
6 authors picked Empire of Pain as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ā¢ A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR ā¢ 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. From the prize-winning and bestselling author of Say Nothing.
"A real-life version of the HBO series Succession with a lethal sting in its tailā¦a masterful work of narrative reportage.ā ā Laura Miller, Slate
The history of the Sackler dynasty is rife with dramaābaroque personal lives; bitter disputes over estates; fistfights in boardrooms; glittering art collections; Machiavellian courtroomā¦