A Modest Proposal

Swift published this in 1729 in the flat, reasonable tone of a policy document: a practical solution to Irish poverty in which the poor sell their babies as food to the English rich, with careful calculations of cost per pound and suggestions for preparation. The English establishment banned it. Swift was threatened. The pamphlet is ten pages long and contains the complete instruction manual for political satire — how the adoption of the enemy's own language and logic, pushed to its conclusion, exposes that logic more completely than any direct attack could. Every satirist from Voltaire to Vonnegut to the writers of Look Who's Back and Yesteryear on this shelf learned something from how this works. The foundational text for teaching children to make satirical work — not because it is old and canonical but because it is perfect, and perfection in craft is the best possible teacher. The most economical punk act in the catalog: ten pages, one argument, four hundred years of influence.