The Price of Silence: The Duke Lacrosse Scandal, the Power of the Elite, and the Corruption of Our Great Universities

&quot;A masterwork of reporting and a devastating critique...required reading&quot; (<i>The New York Times Book Review</i>) : The authoritative, full account of the infamous Duke Lacrosse case, in which academia, sports, sex, race, money, and power all collided to devastating effect.<br><br>Despite being front-page news nationwide, the true story of the 2006 Duke lacrosse team rape case is more complex than all the reports to date would indicate. <i>The Price of Silence</i> is the definitive account of what happens when the most combustible forces in American culture - unbridled ambition, intellectual elitism, athletic prowess, aggressive sexual behavior, racial bias, and absolute prosecutorial authority - explode on a powerful university campus, in the justice system, and in the media.<br> <br>In <i>The Price of Silence</i> bestselling author William D. Cohan, whose reporting and writing have been hailed as &quot;gripping&quot; (<i>The</i> <i>New York Times</i>) , &quot;authoritative&quot; (<i>The</i> <i>Washington Post</i>) , and &quot;seductively engrossing&quot; (<i>Chicago Tribune</i>) , presents a stunning account of the Duke lacrosse team scandal and pulls back the curtain on the larger issues of widespread sexual misconduct, underage drinking, and bad-boy behavior. His reconstruction of the scandal's events - the night in question, the local police investigation, Duke's actions, the lacrosse players' defense tactics, the furious campus politics - is meticulous and full.<br> <br>This story is far bigger than what was told by the media, and is still told today; for at the heart of it are individuals whose lives were changed forever. Now with a new afterword, Cohan sheds light on what is happening as colleges and universities compete with one another and &quot;captures brilliantly the theater of the absurd that is played out on campuses every year over one controversy or another&quot; (<i>The Wall Street Journal</i>) .