William Cohan is a Duke alumnus whose
previous books, including “House of Cards” and Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs
Came to Rule the World” have been hailed as “authoritative” (The Washington
Post), “seductively engrossing” (Chicago Tribune), “riveting’’ (The Economist),
and “masterful” (Los Angeles Times), The Price of Silence: The Duke
Lacrosse Scandal, the Power of the Elite, and the Corruption of Our Great
Universities is a new examination
of the infamous 2006 Duke lacrosse team case. Cohan claims that the true story of what happened
has never been told in its entirety, and it is far more complex and profound
than all the reporting on it to date would indicate. What happened at Duke
explains how power works at the highest levels of ambitious academic
institutions, which is to say that power always protects itself, even if at a
great cost to others. Cohan tracks the fates of the key characters in the drama
and updates the story, which even now contains new developments. The book also reveals the multi-faceted pressures faced by America’s top
colleges and universities. The Price of Silence pulls back the
curtain on the larger issues of sexual misconduct, underage drinking, and bad-boy
behavior that afflict not just Duke but elite and highly competitive colleges
and universities across the country.
