Tundraco's Daily Living Guide to Book Reviews
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Tundraco's Daily Living Guide to Book Reviews |
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A Modest Proposal and Other Satirical Works By Jonathan Swift Dover Publications (1996), 64 pages ISBN 10: 0486287599 ISBN 13: 978-0486287591 |
Reviewed by Israel Drazin - May 3, 2010
The Irishman Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)is justly praised for his famous Gulliver's Travels; however, most people know nothing about his other writings. The titled satire is the most widely known of the five short works in this volume. It suggests that the Irish could solve their hunger problem by eating their children. This proposal, he writes, will have many social benefits, including the following: First, it will reduce the number of Roman Catholics who are "the principal breeders of the nation as well as our most dangerous enemies." Second the "poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own." Third, new money will be introduced into the economy that will be beneficial to everyone. Fourth, those having children will not need to maintain them after raising them for a year. Fifth, taverns will have more food at their disposal and "fine gentlemen" will enjoy visiting them. Sixth, doing away with children would be a great inducement to marriage.
Dr. Israel Drazin is the author of fifteen books, including a series of five volumes on the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible, which he co-authors with Rabbi Dr. Stanley M. Wagner, and a series of four books on the twelfth century philosopher Moses Maimonides, the latest being Maimonides: Reason Above All, published by Gefen Publishing House, www.gefenpublishing.com. The Orthodox Union (OU) publishes daily samples of the Targum books on www.ouradio.org
