It reached right to the heart of the Empire, to India, a country she never visited but whose problems, of famine, poor sanitation, and oppression of the peasant class by unscrupulous landowners, were a major concern in the latter part of her life.

BBC: Florence Nightingale: Legend of the Lady with the Lamp

They may seem less brutal than the events in the Highlands but the Lowland clearances were just as effective at displacing country dwellers: by 1820 an entire social class of cottars - peasant farmers who had a traditional claim on land in return for rent or service to a landlord and who made up a third of the population - simply disappeared.

BBC: Scotland's forgotten clearances

In this satirical essay, Swift criticizes the relationship between landowner and peasant, the attitude toward the working class of the time, and even some behaviors of the people for whom he was fighting.

FORBES: Swift's Psalmanazar: When 'Titillating' Means More Than 'True'