Gulliver’s Travels, Party Politics, and Empire

Abstract

Why did Jonathan Swift condemn “modern” colonies in Gulliver’s Travels? Answering this question requires placing Swift’s bestseller in the context of the post-1714 imperial crisis and of British imperial partisan politics. Understood in this light, Swift condemned both the Walpoleian Whig endorsement of hierarchical empire and their Patriot opponents’ embrace of a more inclusive commercialist imperial vision. Swift condemned the latter for its rejection of agrarian political economy in favor of commercial rapaciousness and the former for failing to recognize Ireland’s proper place in the Empire. Ireland, in Swift’s view, was properly a free kingdom and not a colony.