A Modest Proposal

In this savage satirical pamphlet, Swift coolly proposes that impoverished Irish families solve their poverty by selling their infants as food for the rich—a monstrous suggestion delivered in the calm, reasonable voice of an economic planner. The horror of the idea is precisely the point: a devastating attack on English exploitation of Ireland and on the heartless logic that reduces human misery to numbers. One of the greatest works of satire ever written, it remains a model of irony so sharp it still shocks. Brief and blistering, A Modest Proposal is Swift’s fury distilled to perfection.