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 in 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 Oxycontin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis - an international epidemic of drug addiction which has killed nearly half a million people. In this masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, award-winning journalist and host of the Wind of Change podcast Patrick Radden Keefe exhaustively documents the jaw-dropping and ferociously compelling reality. Empire of Pain is the story of a dynasty: a parable of 21st century greed.

- Browns Books Synopsis

Formerly known as The Samuel Johnson Prize (1999 – 2015) it is the most prestigious non-fiction prize in the UK, worth £50,000 to the winner.

Historically, The NCR Book Award for Non-Fiction ran for 10 years from 1987 to 1997 and The Samuel Johnson Prize launched in 1999 taking over where the NCR Award left off.  In 2016 Baillie Gifford, the Edinburgh-based investment management partnership, became the sponsor of The Samuel Johnson Prize and the award was renamed The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction.