Jonathan Swift 
Modest Proposal 
For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland, from Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick

Widely regarded as one of the most brilliant pieces of political satire ever published, "A Modest Proposal" is Jonathan Swift’s merciless skewering of England’s treatment of Ireland’s impoverished population in the eighteenth century. Nearly 300 years after its release, this shocking and outrageous essay still packs a punch.