A Modest Proposal
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Narrated by:
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Robert Blumenfeld
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By:
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Jonathan Swift
About this listen
A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift suggests in his essay that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. By doing this he mocks the authority of the British officials.
A Modest Proposal is included in many literature programs as an example of early modern western satire. It also serves as an exceptional introduction to the concept and use of argumentative language, lending itself well to secondary and post-secondary essay courses. Outside of the realm of English studies, A Modest Proposal is a relevant piece included in many comparative and global literature and history courses, as well as those of numerous other disciplines in the arts, humanities, and even the social sciences.
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Sir Francis Bacon's The New Atlantis is a utopian novel about a mythical land called Bensalem, where the inhabitants live happily with the sciences. In The New Atlantis, Bacon focuses on the duty of the state toward science, and his projections for state-sponsored research anticipate many advances in medicine and surgery, meteorology, and machinery. Although The New Atlantis is only a part of his plan for an ideal commonwealth, this work does represent Bacon's ideological beliefs.
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Oxford World Classics
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By: Francis Bacon
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As a Man Thinketh
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James Allen's most famous book, "As a Man Thinketh", was originally published in 1902. It is now considered a classic self-help book. Its underlying premise is that noble thoughts make a noble person, while lowly thoughts make a miserable person. Allen's books illustrate the use of the power of thought to increase personal capabilities. Although he never achieved great fame or wealth, his works continue to influence people around the world, including the New Thought movement.
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Nothing but platitudes
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Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
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Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us - an ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings. In best-selling author Walter Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why Franklin turns to us from history's stage with eyes that twinkle from behind his new-fangled spectacles. In Benjamin Franklin, Isaacson shows how Franklin defines both his own time and ours. The most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself.
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Good book, not crazy about the narrator
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An Imperfect God
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Washington was born and raised among Blacks and mixed-race people; he and his wife had blood ties to the slave community. Yet as a young man he bought and sold slaves without scruple, even raffled off children to collect debts (an incident ignored by earlier biographers). Then, on the Revolutionary battlefields where he commanded both Black and White troops, Washington's attitudes began to change.
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The Black Man: The Father of Civilization, Proven by Biblical History
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James Morris Webb argues that the Black man was the father of civilization, born in the land of Egypt, and that the different branches of science and art were simply transmitted to other races, which, as the ages have rolled by have only been enlarged - and to some extent improved upon. The narrative is rich in quotes from the Bible.
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Wow !! I never thought
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The Wealth of Nations
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The foundation for all modern economic thought and political economy, The Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of Scottish economist Adam Smith, who introduces the world to the very idea of economics and capitalism in the modern sense of the words.
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ADAM SMITH
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Book of Ages
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From one of our most accomplished and widely admired historians, a revelatory portrait of Benjamin Franklin' s youngest sister and a history of history itself. Like her brother, Jane Franklin was a passionate reader, a gifted writer, and an astonishingly shrewd political commentator.
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Back story of Ben Franklin
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Printer's Error
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Since the Gutenberg Bible first went on sale in 1455, printing has been viewed as one of the highest achievements of human innovation. But the march of progress hasn't been smooth; downright bizarre is more like it. Printer's Error chronicles some of the strangest and most humorous episodes in the history of Western printing. Take, for example, the Gutenberg Bible. While the book is regarded as the first printed work in the Western world, Gutenberg's name doesn't appear anywhere on it.
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Porn for Ye Old Bibliophiles
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Master of the Mountain
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Is there anything new to say about Thomas Jefferson and slavery? The answer is a resounding yes. Henry Wiencek's eloquent, persuasive book - based on new information coming from archaeological work at Monticello and on hitherto overlooked or disregarded evidence in Jefferson's papers - opens up a huge, poorly understood dimension of Jefferson's world. We must, Wiencek suggests, follow the money.
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Clear, Insightful & Iconclastic History
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By: Henry Wiencek
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What listeners say about A Modest Proposal
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Krzysztof
- 11-04-11
Not a bad proposal at all
This audiobook is a collection of Swift's essays, letters, and other works. The best known of these is "A Modest Proposal" wherein the author puts forward a rather original scheme to solve the problem of the poor children of Ireland. As this is a renowned piece of literature most of you probably know what he had in mind, if you do not, the fork on the cover can be taken as a hint.
I am not sure if one was supposed to enjoy this bitter satire but I did. However, if I were to pick my personal favourite, I would go for "Directions To Servants" which was not bitter at all and made me burst out laughing every now and again.
There were some minor pieces I could not get into the spirit of, particularly the letters, many of which felt "out of context". You cannot help admiring the language though.
On the whole I can recommend this audiobook. Not everything in it is brilliant but there are some real gems to be found.
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- Jonathan Garland
- 04-27-15
Very nice collection of letters/essays of J Swift
The audiobook give you a very good collection of Jonathan Swift's sermons, short essays, letters, and pranks over his years. If you are looking to explore his writings more, this collection should point you in the right way.
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