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Gruinard Island

Gruinard Island (Eilean Ghruinneard) is a small, oval-shaped Scottish island approximately 2 km long by 1 km wide, located in Gruinard Bay, about halfway between Gairloch and Ullapool. At its closest point to the mainland, it is about 1 km offshore. In 1942, the island became a sacrifice zone, and was dangerous for all mammals after military experiments with the anthrax bacterium, until it was decontaminated in 1990.

Early history
The island was mentioned by Dean Munro who travelled the area in the mid-16th century. He wrote that it was Clan MacKenzie territory, "full of woods" (it is treeless today), and that it was "guid for fostering of thieves and rebellis" (good for fostering thieves and rebels).

Historically, the counties of Ross-shire and Cromartyshire have both laid claim to Gruinard Island due to the position of the island in between Gairloch and Ullapool. In the late 1780s, the villages became substantial fishing and sheep farming communities leading Gruinard Island to be utilized as an area of land for grazing sheep or as a small dock for fishing. By 1881, the population on the island was 6, soon becoming uninhabited with no record detailing any established population.

In 1926, Rosalynd Maitland purchased the Eilean Darach estate which included Gruinard Island. Rosalynd Maitland bequeathed the island to her niece Molly Dunphie who was friends with Winston Churchill.

Biological warfare testing
In 1942, during World War II, a biological warfare test was carried out on Gruinard by scientists from the Biology Department of Porton Down. The test was conducted as part of Operation Vegetarian, an ultimately unused plan which called for the dispersal of linseed cakes spiked with anthrax across the German countryside. It was recognised that tests would cause long-lasting contamination of the immediate area by anthrax spores, so a remote and uninhabited island was required. Gruinard was surveyed, deemed suitable, and requisitioned from its owners by the British government. Porton Down meteorologist Sir Oliver Graham Sutton was put in charge of a fifty-man team to conduct the trial, with David Willis Wilson Henderson in charge of the germ bomb. Biology Department head Paul Fildes made frequent visits.

The anthrax strain chosen was a highly virulent type called "Vollum 14578", named after R. L. Vollum, Professor of Bacteriology at the University of Oxford, who supplied it. Eighty sheep were taken to the island and bombs filled with anthrax spores were detonated close to where selected groups were tethered. The sheep became infected with anthrax and began to die within days of exposure.

Some of the experiments were recorded on 16 mm colour movie film, which was declassified in 1997. One sequence shows the detonation of an anthrax bomb fixed at the end of a tall pole supported with guy ropes. After the bomb explodes, a brownish aerosol cloud drifts away towards the target animals. A later sequence shows anthrax-infected sheep carcasses being burned in incinerators at the end of the experiment. After the tests were completed, scientists concluded that a large release of anthrax spores would thoroughly pollute German cities, rendering them uninhabitable for decades afterwards. Those conclusions were supported by the inability to decontaminate the island after the experiment—the spores were sufficiently durable to resist any efforts at decontamination.

In 1945, when the island's owner sought its return, the Ministry of Supply recognised that the island was contaminated, and so could not be de-requisitioned until it was deemed safe. In 1946, the government agreed to acquire the island and to take responsibility for it. The owner or their heirs would be able to repurchase the island for £500 when it was declared "fit for habitation by man and beast". For many years, it was judged too hazardous and expensive to decontaminate the island sufficiently to allow public access, and Gruinard Island was quarantined indefinitely. Visits to the island were prohibited, except for periodic checks by Porton Down personnel to determine the level of contamination.

Operation Dark Harvest
In 1981 newspapers began receiving messages with the heading "Operation Dark Harvest" which demanded that the government decontaminate the island, and reported that a "team of microbiologists from two universities" had landed on the island with the aid of local people and collected 300 lb of soil.

The group threatened to leave samples of the soil "at appropriate points that will ensure the rapid loss of indifference of the government and the equally rapid education of the general public". The same day a sealed package of soil was left outside the military research facility at Porton Down; tests revealed that it contained anthrax bacilli. A few days later another sealed package of soil was left in Blackpool, where the governing Conservative Party was holding its annual conference. The soil did not contain anthrax, but officials said that the soil was similar to that found on the island.

Decontamination
Starting in 1986 a determined effort was made to decontaminate Gruinard Island, 280 tonnes of formaldehyde solution diluted in sea water was sprayed over all 485 acres (196 hectares) of the island and the worst-contaminated topsoil around the dispersal site was removed. Run-off from the formaldehyde seeped into the ocean and slowly led to the destruction of intertidal organisms such as barnacles, crustaceans, and seaweed. By 2000, research into intertidal organisms recovery launched and is still ongoing; however, researchers from that survey project in 2007 have said that “recolonization is ongoing, rather than complete.”

A flock of sheep was placed on the island not long after the cleanup in 1987 and remained healthy.

On 24 April 1990, after 48 years of quarantine and four years after the solution was applied, junior defence minister Michael Neubert visited the island and announced its safety by removing the warning signs. On 1 May 1990, the island was repurchased by the heirs of the original owner for the original sale price of £500. There was some confusion in which members of the public did not know it was being resold solely to its original owners and people from around the world sent letters to the British government asking to purchase the island for £500.

Wildfire
On 26 March 2022, the island was burned "from one end to the other" by a wildfire. Eyewitnesses described the scene as "apocalyptic". The cause of the wildfire has not been confirmed but around 200 hectares have been destroyed by the fire. A spokeswoman on behalf of the Gruinard estate did not explicitly state the cause of the fire only that "It hasn't caused any damage. It has done good." Local speculation believes the fire was set as an act of muirburn, a Scottish term when native moorland is burned to provide fresh growth for game and livestock.

Popular culture references
Gruinard Island is mentioned in the novels The Anthrax Mutation by Alan Scott (1971), The Enemy by Desmond Bagley (1977), Isvik by Hammond Innes (1991), Sea of Death by Richard P. Henrick (1992), The Fist of God by Frederick Forsyth (1994), Quantico by Greg Bear (2005), The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde (2005), Forbidden Island by Malcolm Rose (2009), And then you die by Iris Johansen (1998), The Island by R. J. Price (better-known as the poet Richard Price) (2010), And the Land Lay Still by James Robertson, The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin (2011), and White Pines by Gemma Amor (2020). It also features as the principal setting for the novel El año de gracia by Cristina Fernández Cubas, in which the protagonist spends a winter shipwrecked on the island. The island is the principal location in the novel Anthrax Island by D. L. Marshall (2021).

In issues 187–188 of the comic book Hellblazer, in a story titled "Bred in the Bone", the protagonist's niece finds herself on Gruinard surrounded by flesh-eating children. The issues were released in 2003 and were written by Mike Carey and illustrated by Doug Alexander Gregory.

An episode of the British wartime TV series Foyle's War entitled "Bad Blood" involved biological testing – a reference to the Gruinard testing.

The 1970 Hawaii Five-O episode "Three Dead Cows at Makapu, Part 2" featured a scientist played by Ed Flanders who threatened to unleash a deadly virus on the island of Oahu. When being interrogated, the scientist briefly mentions Gruinard Island and how it will be uninhabitable for a century due to anthrax experiments.

Outlying Islands, a Fringe First-winning play by Scottish dramatist David Greig, is a fictionalised account of two British scientists' visit to an island in Scotland where the government plans to test anthrax inspired by the story of Gruinard.

"Smallpox Island", off the north-west coast of Scotland, appears in the 2000 AD comic strip Caballistics, Inc., although the warnings of contamination from biological weapons are a cover for a top secret, high-security prison.

The 2006 Doctor Who audio drama Night Thoughts is set on the fictional Gravonax Island, the name and history of which are inspired by those of Gruinard.

The 2013 UK TV series Utopia describes the fictional outbreak of a new form of flu. During Episode 3, Dugdale visits the proposed origin of the virus at the, now quarantined, Island of Fetlar. On arrival, personnel at the island, wearing orange overalls, carry one of numerous covered bodies past on a stretcher in a scene that is nearly identical to that seen in the original test footage from Gruinard Island. In the dramatisation however, the personnel at Fetlar are seen wearing dust masks as opposed to the gas masks seen in the Gruinard footage; likely due to budget constraints (much of Utopia was not filmed where it claims to be).

The experiments are referred to in the storyline of "Trust", the third and fourth episodes of Series 16 of the BBC series Silent Witness.

title: Gruinard Island


text:
South West Africa

South West Africa, renamed to Namibia from 12 June 1968, was a territory under South African administration from 1915 to 1990, after which it became modern-day Namibia. It bordered Angola (a Portuguese colony before 1975), Botswana (Bechuanaland before 1966), South Africa, and Zambia (Northern Rhodesia before 1964). During its administration, South Africa applied its own apartheid system in the territory of South West Africa.

A German colony known as German South West Africa from 1884 to 1915, it was made a League of Nations mandate of the Union of South Africa following Germany's defeat in the First World War. Although the mandate was repealed by the United Nations on 27 October 1966, South African control over the territory continued despite its illegality under international law. The territory was administered directly by the South African government from 1915 to 1978, when the Turnhalle Constitutional Conference laid the groundwork for semi-autonomous rule. During an interim period between 1978 and 1985, South Africa gradually granted South West Africa a limited form of home rule, culminating in the formation of a Transitional Government of National Unity.

In 1990, South West Africa was granted independence as the Republic of Namibia with the exception of Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands, which continued to remain under South African rule until 1994.

German colony
As a German colony from 1884, it was known as German South West Africa (Deutsch-Südwestafrika). Germany had a difficult time administering the territory, which experienced many insurrections against the harsh German rule, especially those led by guerrilla leader Jacob Morenga. The main port, Walvis Bay, and the Penguin Islands were annexed by the UK in 1878, becoming part of the Cape Colony in 1884. Following the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, Walvis Bay became part of the Cape Province.

As part of the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty in 1890, a corridor of land taken from the northern border of Bechuanaland, extending as far as the Zambezi River, was added to the colony. It was named the Caprivi Strip (Caprivizipfel) after the German Chancellor Leo von Caprivi.

South African rule
In 1915, during the South West Africa campaign of World War I, South Africa captured the German colony. After the war, it was declared a League of Nations Class C Mandate territory under the Treaty of Versailles, with the Union of South Africa responsible for the administration of South West Africa. From 1922, this included Walvis Bay, which, under the South West Africa Affairs Act, was governed as if it were part of the mandated territory. South West Africa remained a League of Nations Mandate until World War II and the collapse of the League of Nations.

The Mandate was supposed to become a United Nations Trust Territory when League of Nations Mandates were transferred to the United Nations following World War II. The Prime Minister, Jan Smuts, objected to South West Africa coming under UN control and refused to allow the territory's transition to independence, instead seeking to make it South Africa's fifth province in 1946.

Although this never occurred, in 1949, the South West Africa Affairs Act was amended to give representation in the Parliament of South Africa to whites in South West Africa, which gave them six seats in the House of Assembly and four in the Senate.

This was to the advantage of the National Party, which enjoyed strong support from the predominantly Afrikaner and ethnic German white population in the territory. Between 1950 and 1977, all of South West Africa's parliamentary seats were held by the National Party.

An additional consequence of this was the extension of apartheid laws to the territory. This gave rise to several rulings at the International Court of Justice, which in 1950 ruled that South Africa was not obliged to convert South West Africa into a UN trust territory, but was still bound by the League of Nations Mandate, with the United Nations General Assembly assuming the supervisory role. The ICJ also clarified that the General Assembly was empowered to receive petitions from the inhabitants of South West Africa and to call for reports from the mandatory nation, South Africa. The General Assembly constituted the Committee on South West Africa to perform the supervisory functions.

In another Advisory Opinion issued in 1955, the Court further ruled that the General Assembly was not required to follow League of Nations voting procedures in determining questions concerning South West Africa. In 1956, the Court further ruled that the committee had the power to grant hearings to petitioners from the mandated territory. In 1960, Ethiopia and Liberia filed a case in the International Court of Justice against South Africa alleging that South Africa had not fulfilled its mandatory duties. This case did not succeed, with the Court ruling in 1966 that they were not the proper parties to bring the case.

Mandate terminated
There was a protracted struggle between South Africa and forces fighting for independence, particularly after the formation of the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) in 1960.

On 27 October 1966, the General Assembly passed resolution 2145 (XXI) which declared the Mandate terminated and that the Republic of South Africa had no further right to administer South West Africa. In 1971, acting on a request for an Advisory Opinion from the United Nations Security Council, the ICJ ruled that the continued presence of South Africa in Namibia was illegal and that South Africa was under an obligation to withdraw from Namibia immediately. It also ruled that all member states of the United Nations were under an obligation not to recognise as valid any act performed by South Africa on behalf of Namibia.

South West Africa became known as Namibia by the UN when the General Assembly changed the territory's name by Resolution 2372 (XXII) of 12 June 1968. SWAPO was recognised as representative of the Namibian people, and gained UN observer status when the territory of South West Africa was already removed from the list of non-self-governing territories.

In 1977, South Africa transferred control of Walvis Bay back to the Cape Province, thereby making it an exclave.

Bantustans (1968–1980)
The South African authorities established 10 bantustans in South West Africa in the late 1960s and early 1970s in accordance with the Odendaal Commission, three of which were granted self-rule. These bantustans were replaced with separate ethnicity based second-tier representative authorities in 1980.

Three-tier system of governance (1980–1989)
The South African government convened the Turnhalle Constitutional Conference between 1976 and 1978 with a view to achieving an "internal" solution to the status of South West Africa. The conference was attended by representatives of 11 ethnic groups: Herero, Coloureds, Baster, Tswana, Damara, Ovambo, Caprivians, Nama, Kavango, San, and Whites. However, the largest freedom movement, SWAPO, was not invited. The conference produced a 29-page document entitled "Petition for the establishment of an interim government". The petition contained a request to set up an interim government for the territory, as well as a draft constitution for "a republican, democratic state" to be known as "South West Africa/Namibia" with its own flag and national anthem.

Under the proposals, there was to be a three-tiered system of governance. The first tier, the Central Government, would consist of a National Assembly which would appoint a Council of Ministers. The second tier would consist of ethnically based Representative Authorities and the third tier would be made up of Local Authorities.

Tier one: Central Government
The upper tier of governance consisted of an elected fifty member National Assembly with legislative powers. The assembly would appoint a Council of Ministers with executive powers. Multi-racial elections for the National Assembly were held in December 1978. The Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) won 41 of the 50 seats and its leader, Dirk Mudge would become Chairman of the Council of Ministers on 1 July 1980. Johannes Skrywer, also of the DTA, became Speaker of the National Assembly.
 * Interim Government (1980–1983)

The interim government collapsed on 18 January 1983 following the resignation of the Council of Ministers citing interference from the South African government and proposals to create a State Council.

 * Direct rule (1983–1985)

Following the collapse of the Interim Government, its legislative and executive powers returned to South African Administrator-General Willie van Niekerk, who was assisted by and Jan F Greebe as chief executive officer. The Representative Authorities and Local Authorities continued to function as intended during this period.

 * Transitional Government of National Unity (1985–1989)

A Multi-Party Conference was established in September 1983 to suggest arrangements for the formation of a new Central Government. Nineteen parties participated in the conference, but again SWAPO was excluded.

The Multi-Party Conference issued the Windhoek Declaration of Basic Principles in 1984 and a Bill of Fundamental Rights and Objectives the following year, resulting in the establishment of a Transitional Government of National Unity (TGNU) on 17 June 1985.

Unlike the previous Interim Government, the TGNU was not directly elected but instead consisted of an appointed 62 member National Assembly and an 8-member Council of Ministers which would be led by each member on a three-month rotational basis. The DTA was awarded 22 seats in the National Assembly with five other parties being awarded 8 seats each. Johannes Skrywer would again become Speaker of the National Assembly and Dawid Bezuidenhout would be the first Chairman of the Council of Ministers.

Tier two: Representative Authorities
The second-tier of governance in South West Africa consisted of ethnic-based Representative Authorities which replaced the previous system of Bantustans that were established in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Each authority would have executive and legislative competencies, being made up of elected Legislative Assemblies who would appoint Executive Committees led by chairmen. Representative Authorities had responsibility for land tenure, agriculture, education up to primary level, teachers' training, health services, and social welfare and pensions and their Legislative Assemblies had the ability to pass legislation known as Ordinances. Unlike the former Bantustans, Representative Authorities functioned on the basis of ethnicity only and were no longer based on geographically defined areas.

Representative Authorities were created for Whites, Coloureds, Ovambos, Kavangos, Caprivians, Damaras, Namas, Tswanas, and Herero. A similar body had been established for Rehoboth Basters by the Rehoboth Self-Determination Act, 1976. An advisory council was established for San Bushmen in 1986. No representative body was established for Himbas.

Tier three: Local authorities
Local authorities formed the lowest tier of governance in South West Africa. Previously established local government bodies would continue to exist and new ones could be formed. In urban areas, the local authority would be an elected local council. In rural areas where local governance structures was based on traditional customary law, the relevant Representative Authority could support their further development.

Transition to independence (1989–1990)
The Three-tier system of governance was suspended on 28 February 1989 following the signing of a peace agreement the previous year. As stipulated by United Nations Security Council Resolution 435, a United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) was deployed on 1 April 1989. Elections to a Constituent Assembly were held in November 1989 and the territory became independent as the Republic of Namibia on 21 March 1990. Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands remained under South African control until 1994.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: South West Africa


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Fata Morgana

Fata Morgana often refers to:

 * Fata Morgana (mirage), an optical phenomenon
 * Morgan le Fay or Fata Morgana, a sorceress in Arthurian legend

Fata Morgana may also refer to:

Film and television

 * "Fata Morgana", a cinematic technique used by the Continental Wondergraph Company screening films in Australia around 1910
 * Fata Morgana (1965 film), a Spanish drama
 * Fata Morgana (1971 film), by Werner Herzog
 * Fata Morgana (2007 film), a German film
 * Fata Morgana (game show), a 2004–2008 Flemish TV show
 * "Fata Morgana" (Sanctuary), a 2008 TV episode

Literature

 * Fata Morgana, an 1896 novel by Elisabeth Bürstenbinder
 * Fata Morgana, a 1902–1910 novella by Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky
 * Fata Morgana, a 1904 novel by André Castaigne
 * "Fata Morgana", a 1941 long poem by André Breton
 * Fata Morgana, a 1977 crime novel by William Kotzwinkle
 * Fata Morgana, a 1992 crime novel by Roy Jacobsen
 * Fata Morgana, a 1999 science fiction novel by Leo Frankowski
 * Fata Morgana, a 2007 poetry collection by Reginald Shepherd

Albums

 * Fata Morgana, a 1995 album by Omer Faruk Tekbilek
 * Fata Morgana, a 1995 EP by Fata Morgana, a side project of Mortiis
 * Fata Morgana, a 1998 compilation album by Morgana Lefay
 * Nico's Last Concert: Fata Morgana, a 2000 album by Nico
 * Fata Morgana, a 2011 album by AWS

Songs

 * "Fata Morgana", a 1984 song by Dissidenten
 * "Fata Morgana", a 1985 song by Erste Allgemeine Verunsicherung from Geld oder Leben!
 * "Fata Morgana", a 1986 song by Fates Warning from Awaken the Guardian
 * "Fatamorgana (Mirage)", a 1989 song by Ofra Haza from Desert Wind
 * "Fata Morgana", a 1993 song by Litfiba from Terremoto
 * "Fata Morgana", a 1993 song by Dana International from Danna International (Offer Nissim Presents)
 * "Fata morgana", a 2003 song by Mariza Koch
 * "Fata Morgana", a 2007 song by El Guincho from Alegranza
 * "Fata Morgana", a 2017 song by Markul & Oxxxymiron
 * Fata Morgana, a side project involving Tim Alexander of Primus

Classical music

 * "Fata Morgana Polka-mazurka", a polka by Johann Strauss, 1868
 * Fata Morgana, a character in Sergei Prokofiev's 1921 opera The Love for Three Oranges

Places

 * Fata Morgana (Efteling), an amusement park ride in North Brabant, Netherlands
 * Fata Morgana Land, a phantom island in the Arctic
 * Fatamorgana (photo school), in Copenhagen, Denmark

title: Fata Morgana


text:
Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels, or 'Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships' is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, satirising both human nature and the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre. It is Swift's best-known full-length work and a classic of English literature. Swift claimed that he wrote Gulliver's Travels "to vex the world rather than divert it".

The book was an immediate success. The English dramatist John Gay remarked, "It is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery."

Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput
The travel begins with a short preamble in which Lemuel Gulliver gives a brief outline of his life and history before his voyages.

 * 4 May 1699 – 13 April 1702

During his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck and finds himself a prisoner of a race of tiny people less than 6 in tall, much like little people in mythology, who are inhabitants of the island country of Lilliput. After giving assurances of his good behaviour, he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favourite of the Lilliput Royal Court. He is also given permission by the King of Lilliput to go around the city on the condition that he must not hurt their subjects.

At first, the Lilliputians are hospitable to Gulliver, but they are also wary of the threat that his size poses to them. The Lilliputians reveal themselves to be a people who put great emphasis on trivial matters. For example, which end of an egg a person cracks becomes the basis of a deep political rift within that nation. They are a people who revel in displays of authority and performances of power. Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbours the Blefuscudians by stealing their fleet. However, he refuses to reduce the island nation of Blefuscu to a province of Lilliput, displeasing the King and the royal court.

Gulliver is charged with treason for, among other crimes, urinating in the capital though he was putting out a fire. He is convicted and sentenced to be blinded. With the assistance of a kind friend, "a considerable person at court", he escapes to Blefuscu. Here, he spots and retrieves an abandoned boat and sails out to be rescued by a passing ship, which safely takes him back home with some Lilliputian animals he carries with him.

Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag

 * 20 June 1702 – 3 June 1706

Gulliver soon sets out again. When the sailing ship Adventure is blown off course by storms and forced to sail for land in search of fresh water, Gulliver is abandoned by his companions and left on a peninsula on the western coast of the North American continent.

The grass of Brobdingnag is as tall as a tree. He is then found by a farmer who is about 72 ft (22 m) tall, judging from Gulliver estimating the man's step being 10 yd. The giant farmer brings Gulliver home, and his daughter Glumdalclitch cares for Gulliver. The farmer treats him as a curiosity and exhibits him for money. After a while the constant display makes Gulliver sick, and the farmer sells him to the queen of the realm. Glumdalclitch (who accompanied her father while exhibiting Gulliver) is taken into the queen's service to take care of the tiny man. Since Gulliver is too small to use their huge chairs, beds, knives and forks, the queen commissions a small house to be built for him so that he can be carried around in it; this is referred to as his "travelling box".

Between small adventures such as fighting giant wasps and being carried to the roof by a monkey, he discusses the state of Europe with the King of Brobdingnag. The king is not happy with Gulliver's accounts of Europe, especially upon learning of the use of guns and cannon. On a trip to the seaside, his traveling box is seized by a giant eagle which drops Gulliver and his box into the sea where he is picked up by sailors who return him to England.

Part III: A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib and Japan

 * 5 August 1706 – 16 April 1710

Setting out again, Gulliver's ship is attacked by pirates, and he is marooned close to a desolate rocky island near India. He is rescued by the flying island of Laputa, a kingdom devoted to the arts of music, mathematics, and astronomy but unable to use them for practical ends. Rather than using armies, Laputa has a custom of throwing rocks down at rebellious cities on the ground.

Gulliver tours Balnibarbi, the kingdom ruled from Laputa, as the guest of a low-ranking courtier and sees the ruin brought about by the blind pursuit of science without practical results, in a satire on bureaucracy and on the Royal Society and its experiments. At the Grand Academy of Lagado in Balnibarbi, great resources and manpower are employed on researching preposterous schemes such as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, softening marble for use in pillows, learning how to mix paint by smell, and uncovering political conspiracies by examining the excrement of suspicious persons. Gulliver refers in passing to his visit to Tribnia (that is, Britain), called by some Langden (that is, England), where the main occupations are plotting and informing. Gulliver is then taken to Maldonada, the main port of Balnibarbi, to await a trader who can take him on to Japan.

While waiting for a passage, Gulliver takes a short side-trip to the island of Glubbdubdrib which is southwest of Balnibarbi. On Glubbdubdrib, he visits a magician's dwelling and discusses history with the ghosts of historical figures, the most obvious restatement of the "ancients versus moderns" theme in the book. The ghosts include Julius Caesar, Brutus, Homer, Aristotle, René Descartes, and Pierre Gassendi.

On the island of Luggnagg, he encounters the struldbrugs, people who are immortal. They do not have the gift of eternal youth, but suffer the infirmities of old age and are considered legally dead at the age of eighty.

After reaching Japan, Gulliver asks the Emperor "to excuse my performing the ceremony imposed upon my countrymen of trampling upon the crucifix", which the Emperor does. Gulliver returns home, determined to stay there for the rest of his days.

Part IV: A Voyage to the Land of the Houyhnhnms

 * 7 September 1710 – 5 December 1715

Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to sea as the captain of a merchantman, as he is bored with his employment as a surgeon. On this voyage, he is forced to find new additions to his crew who, he believes, have turned against him. His crew then commits mutiny. After keeping him contained for some time, they resolve to leave him on the first piece of land they come across, and continue as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and comes upon a race of deformed savage humanoid creatures to which he conceives a violent antipathy. Shortly afterwards, he meets the Houyhnhnms, a race of talking horses. They are the rulers while the deformed creatures that resemble human beings are called Yahoos.

Some scholars have identified the relationship between the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos as a master/slave dynamic.

Gulliver becomes a member of a horse's household and comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnms and their way of life, rejecting his fellow humans as merely Yahoos endowed with some semblance of reason which they only use to exacerbate and add to the vices Nature gave them. However, an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a Yahoo with some semblance of reason, is a danger to their civilization and commands him to swim back to the land that he came from. Gulliver's "Master", the Houyhnhnm who took him into his household, buys him time to create a canoe to make his departure easier. After another disastrous voyage, he is rescued against his will by a Portuguese ship. He is disgusted to see that Captain Pedro de Mendez, whom he considers a Yahoo, is a wise, courteous, and generous person.

He returns to his home in England, but is unable to reconcile himself to living among "Yahoos" and becomes a recluse, remaining in his house, avoiding his family and his wife, and spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables.

Composition and history
It is uncertain exactly when Swift started writing Gulliver's Travels. (Much of the writing was done at Loughry Manor in Cookstown, County Tyrone, whilst Swift stayed there.) Some sources suggest as early as 1713 when Swift, Gay, Pope, Arbuthnot and others formed the Scriblerus Club with the aim of satirising popular literary genres. According to these accounts, Swift was charged with writing the memoirs of the club's imaginary author, Martinus Scriblerus, and also with satirising the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre. It is known from Swift's correspondence that the composition proper began in 1720 with the mirror-themed Parts I and II written first, Part IV next in 1723 and Part III written in 1724; but amendments were made even while Swift was writing Drapier's Letters. By August 1725 the book was complete; and as Gulliver's Travels was a transparently anti-Whig satire, it is likely that Swift had the manuscript copied so that his handwriting could not be used as evidence if a prosecution should arise, as had happened in the case of some of his Irish pamphlets (the Drapier's Letters). In March 1726 Swift travelled to London to have his work published; the manuscript was secretly delivered to the publisher Benjamin Motte, who used five printing houses to speed production and avoid piracy. Motte, recognising a best-seller but fearing prosecution, cut or altered the worst offending passages (such as the descriptions of the court contests in Lilliput and the rebellion of Lindalino), added some material in defence of Queen Anne to Part II, and published it. The first edition was released in two volumes on 28 October 1726, priced at 8s. 6d.

Motte published Gulliver's Travels anonymously, and as was often the way with fashionable works, several follow-ups (Memoirs of the Court of Lilliput), parodies (Two Lilliputian Odes, The first on the Famous Engine With Which Captain Gulliver extinguish'd the Palace Fire...) and "keys" (Gulliver Decipher'd and Lemuel Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World Compendiously Methodiz'd, the second by Edmund Curll who had similarly written a "key" to Swift's Tale of a Tub in 1705) were swiftly produced. These were mostly printed anonymously (or occasionally pseudonymously) and were quickly forgotten. Swift had nothing to do with them and disavowed them in Faulkner's edition of 1735. Swift's friend Alexander Pope wrote a set of five Verses on Gulliver's Travels, which Swift liked so much that he added them to the second edition of the book, though they are rarely included in modern editions.

Faulkner's 1735 edition
In 1735 an Irish publisher, George Faulkner, printed a set of Swift's works, Volume III of which was Gulliver's Travels. As revealed in Faulkner's "Advertisement to the Reader", Faulkner had access to an annotated copy of Motte's work by "a friend of the author" (generally believed to be Swift's friend Charles Ford) which reproduced most of the manuscript without Motte's amendments, the original manuscript having been destroyed. It is also believed that Swift at least reviewed proofs of Faulkner's edition before printing, but this cannot be proved. Generally, this is regarded as the Editio Princeps of Gulliver's Travels with one small exception. This edition had an added piece by Swift, A letter from Capt. Gulliver to his Cousin Sympson, which complained of Motte's alterations to the original text, saying he had so much altered it that "I do hardly know mine own work" and repudiating all of Motte's changes as well as all the keys, libels, parodies, second parts and continuations that had appeared in the intervening years. This letter now forms part of many standard texts.

Lindalino
The five-paragraph episode in Part III, telling of the rebellion of the surface city of Lindalino against the flying island of Laputa, was an allegory of the affair of Drapier's Letters of which Swift was proud. Lindalino represented Dublin and the impositions of Laputa represented the British imposition of William Wood's poor-quality copper currency. Faulkner had omitted this passage, either because of political sensitivities raised by an Irish publisher printing an anti-British satire, or possibly because the text he worked from did not include the passage. In 1899 the passage was included in a new edition of the Collected Works. Modern editions derive from the Faulkner edition with the inclusion of this 1899 addendum.

Isaac Asimov notes in The Annotated Gulliver that Lindalino is generally taken to be Dublin, being composed of double "L-I-N"s; hence, Dublin.

Major themes
Gulliver's Travels has been described as a Menippean satire, a children's story, proto-science fiction and a forerunner of the modern novel.

Published seven years after Daniel Defoe's successful Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels may be read as a systematic rebuttal of Defoe's optimistic account of human capability. In The Unthinkable Swift: The Spontaneous Philosophy of a Church of England Man, Warren Montag argues that Swift was concerned to refute the notion that the individual precedes society, as Defoe's work seems to suggest. Swift regarded such thought as a dangerous endorsement of Thomas Hobbes' radical political philosophy and for this reason Gulliver repeatedly encounters established societies rather than desolate islands. The captain who invites Gulliver to serve as a surgeon aboard his ship on the disastrous third voyage is named Robinson.

Allan Bloom asserts that Swift's lampooning of the experiments of Laputa is the first questioning by a modern liberal democrat of the effects and cost on a society which embraces and celebrates policies pursuing scientific progress. Swift wrote: "The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several places. His clothes, shirt, and skin, were all of the same colour. He has been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. He told me, he did not doubt, that, in eight years more, he should be able to supply the governor’s gardens with sunshine, at a reasonable rate: but he complained that his stock was low, and entreated me 'to give him something as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear season for cucumbers'. I made him a small present, for my lord had furnished me with money on purpose, because he knew their practice of begging from all who go to see them."

A possible reason for the book's classic status is that it can be seen as many things to many people. Broadly, the book has three themes:
 * A satirical view of the state of European government, and of petty differences between religions
 * An inquiry into whether people are inherently corrupt or whether they become corrupted
 * A restatement of the older "ancients versus moderns" controversy previously addressed by Swift in The Battle of the Books

In storytelling and construction the parts follow a pattern:
 * The causes of Gulliver's misadventures become more malignant as time goes on—he is first shipwrecked, then abandoned, then attacked by strangers, then attacked by his own crew.
 * Gulliver's attitude hardens as the book progresses—he is genuinely surprised by the viciousness and politicking of the Lilliputians but finds the behaviour of the Yahoos in the fourth part reflective of the behaviour of people.
 * Each part is the reverse of the preceding part—Gulliver is big/small/wise/ignorant, the countries are complex/simple/scientific/natural, and Gulliver perceives the forms of government as worse/better/worse/better than Britain's (although Swift's opinions on this matter are unclear).
 * Gulliver's viewpoint between parts is mirrored by that of his antagonists in the contrasting part—Gulliver sees the tiny Lilliputians as being vicious and unscrupulous, and then the king of Brobdingnag sees Europe in exactly the same light; Gulliver sees the Laputians as unreasonable, and his Houyhnhnm master sees humanity as equally so.
 * No form of government is ideal—the simplistic Brobdingnagians enjoy public executions and have streets infested with beggars, the honest and upright Houyhnhnms who have no word for lying are happy to suppress the true nature of Gulliver as a Yahoo and are equally unconcerned about his reaction to being expelled.
 * Specific individuals may be good even where the race is bad—Gulliver finds a friend in each of his travels and, despite Gulliver's rejection and horror toward all Yahoos, is treated very well by the Portuguese captain, Don Pedro, who returns him to England at the book's end.

Misogyny
Although Swift is often accused of misogyny in this work, many scholars believe Gulliver's blatant misogyny to be intentional, and that Swift uses satire to openly mock misogyny throughout the book. One of the most cited examples of this comes from Gulliver's description of a Brobdingnagian woman:

"I must confess no Object ever disgusted me so much as the Sight of her monstrous Breast, which I cannot tell what to compare with, so as to give the curious Reader an Idea of its Bulk, Shape, and Colour.... This made me reflect upon the fair Skins of our English Ladies, who appear so beautiful to us, only because they are of our own Size, and their Defects not to be seen but through a magnifying glass...."

This open critique towards aspects of the female body is something that Swift often brings up in other works of his, particularly in poems such as The Lady's Dressing Room and A Beautiful Young Nymph Going To Bed.

A criticism of Swift's use of misogyny by Felicity A. Nussbaum proposes the idea that "Gulliver himself is a gendered object of satire, and his antifeminist sentiments may be among those mocked". Gulliver’s own masculinity is often mocked, seen in how he is made to be a coward among the Brobdingnag people, repressed by the people of Lilliput, and viewed as an inferior Yahoo among the Houyhnhnms.

Nussbaum goes on to say in her analysis of the misogyny of the stories that in the adventures, particularly in the first story, the satire is not singularly focused on satirizing women, but to satirize Gulliver himself as a politically naive and inept giant whose masculine authority comically seems to be in jeopardy.

Another criticism of Swift's use of misogyny delves into Gulliver's repeated use of the word 'nauseous', and the way that Gulliver is fighting his emasculation by commenting on how he thinks the women of Brobdingnag are disgusting.

"Swift has Gulliver frequently invoke the sensory (as opposed to reflective) word 'nauseous' to describe this and other magnified images in Brobdingnag not only to reveal the neurotic depths of Gulliver's misogyny, but also to show how male nausea can be used as a pathetic countermeasure against the perceived threat of female consumption. Swift has Gulliver associate these magnified acts of female consumption with the act of 'throwing-up'—the opposite of and antidote to the act of gastronomic consumption."

This commentary of Deborah Needleman Armintor relies upon the way that the giant women do with Gulliver as they please, in much the same way as one might play with a toy, and get it to do everything one can think of. Armintor's comparison focuses on the pocket microscopes that were popular in Swift's time. She talks about how this instrument of science was transitioned to something toy-like and accessible, so it shifted into something that women favored, and thus men lost interest. This is similar to the progression of Gulliver's time in Brobdingnag, from man of science to women's plaything.

Comic misanthropy
Misanthropy is a theme that scholars have identified in Gulliver's Travels. Arthur Case, R.S. Crane, and Edward Stone discuss Gulliver's development of misanthropy and come to the consensus that this theme ought to be viewed as comical rather than cynical.

In terms of Gulliver's development of misanthropy, these three scholars point to the fourth voyage. According to Case, Gulliver is at first averse to identifying with the Yahoos, but, after he deems the Houyhnhnms superior, he comes to believe that humans (including his fellow Europeans) are Yahoos due to their shortcomings. Perceiving the Houyhnhnms as perfect, Gulliver thus begins to perceive himself and the rest of humanity as imperfect. According to Crane, when Gulliver develops his misanthropic mindset, he becomes ashamed of humans and views them more in line with animals. This new perception of Gulliver's, Stone claims, comes about because the Houyhnhnms' judgement pushes Gulliver to identify with the Yahoos. Along similar lines, Crane holds that Gulliver's misanthropy is developed in part when he talks to the Houyhnhnms about mankind because the discussions lead him to reflect on his previously held notion of humanity. Specifically, Gulliver’s master, who is a Houyhnhnm, provides questions and commentary that contribute to Gulliver’s reflectiveness and subsequent development of misanthropy. However, Case points out that Gulliver's dwindling opinion of humans may be blown out of proportion due to the fact that he is no longer able to see the good qualities that humans are capable of possessing. Gulliver’s new view of humanity, then, creates his repulsive attitude towards his fellow humans after leaving Houyhnhnmland. But in Stone's view, Gulliver’s actions and attitude upon his return can be interpreted as misanthropy that is exaggerated for comic effect rather than for a cynical effect. Stone further suggests that Gulliver goes mentally mad and believes that this is what leads Gulliver to exaggerate the shortcomings of humankind.

Another aspect that Crane attributes to Gulliver’s development of misanthropy is that when in Houyhnhnmland, it is the animal-like beings (the Houyhnhnms) who exhibit reason and the human-like beings (the Yahoos) who seem devoid of reason; Crane argues that it is this switch from Gulliver’s perceived norm that leads the way for him to question his view of humanity. As a result, Gulliver begins to identify humans as a type of Yahoo. To this point, Crane brings up the fact that a traditional definition of man—Homo est animal rationale (Humans are rational animals)—was prominent in academia around Swift's time. Furthermore, Crane argues that Swift had to study this type of logic (see Porphyrian Tree) in college, so it is highly likely that he intentionally inverted this logic by placing the typically given example of irrational beings—horses—in the place of humans and vice versa.

Stone points out that Gulliver's Travels takes a cue from the genre of the travel book, which was popular during Swift's time period. From reading travel books, Swift’s contemporaries were accustomed to beast-like figures of foreign places; thus, Stone holds that the creation of the Yahoos was not out of the ordinary for the time period. From this playing off of familiar genre expectations, Stone deduces that the parallels that Swift draws between the Yahoos and humans is meant to be humorous rather than cynical. Even though Gulliver sees Yahoos and humans as if they are one and the same, Stone argues that Swift did not intend for readers to take on Gulliver’s view; Stone states that the Yahoos' behaviors and characteristics that set them apart from humans further supports the notion that Gulliver's identification with Yahoos is not meant to be taken to heart. Thus, Stone sees Gulliver’s perceived superiority of the Houyhnhnms and subsequent misanthropy as features that Swift used to employ the satirical and humorous elements characteristic of the Beast Fables of travel books that were popular with his contemporaries; as Swift did, these Beast Fables placed animals above humans in terms of morals and reason, but they were not meant to be taken literally.

Character analysis
Pedro de Mendez is the name of the Portuguese captain who rescues Gulliver in Book IV. When Gulliver is forced to leave the Island of the Houyhnhnms, his plan is "to discover some small Island uninhabited" where he can live in solitude. Instead, he is picked up by Don Pedro's crew. Despite Gulliver's appearance—he is dressed in skins and speaks like a horse—Don Pedro treats him compassionately and returns him to Lisbon.

Though Don Pedro appears only briefly, he has become an important figure in the debate between so-called soft school and hard school readers of Gulliver's Travels. Some critics contend that Gulliver is a target of Swift's satire and that Don Pedro represents an ideal of human kindness and generosity. Gulliver believes humans are similar to Yahoos in the sense that they make "no other use of reason, than to improve and multiply ... vices". Captain Pedro provides a contrast to Gulliver's reasoning, proving humans are able to reason, be kind, and most of all: civilized. Gulliver sees the bleak fallenness at the center of human nature, and Don Pedro is merely a minor character who, in Gulliver's words, is "an Animal which had some little Portion of Reason".

Political allusions
Part I is probably responsible for the greatest number of political allusions. One of the most commonly noted parallels is that the wars between Lilliput and Blefuscu resemble those between England and France. The enmity between the low heels and the high heels is often interpreted as a parody of the Whigs and Tories, and the character referred to as Flimnap is often interpreted as an allusion to Sir Robert Walpole, a British statesman and Whig politician who Swift had a personally turbulent relationship with.

In Part III, the grand Academy of Lagado in Balnibarbi resembles and satirizes the Royal Society, which Swift was openly critical of. Furthermore, "A. E. Case, acting on a tipoff offered by the word 'projectors,' found [the Academy] to be the hiding place of many of those speculators implicated in the South Sea Bubble." According to Treadwell, however, these implications extend beyond the speculators of the South Sea Bubble to include the many projectors of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century England, including Swift himself. Not only is Swift satirizing the role of the projector in contemporary English politics, which he dabbled in during his younger years, but the role of the satirist, whose goals align with that of a projector: "The less obvious corollary of that word [projector] is that it must include the poor deluded satirist himself, since satire is, in its very essence, the wildest of all projects - a scheme to reform the world."

Ann Kelly describes Part IV of The Travels and the Yahoo-Houyhnhnm relationship as an allusion to that of the Irish and the British: "The term that Swift uses to describe the oppression in both Ireland and Houyhnhnmland is 'slavery'; this is not an accidental word choice, for Swift was well aware of the complicated moral and philosophical questions raised by the emotional designation 'slavery.' The misery of the Irish in the early eighteenth century shocked Swift and all others who witnessed it; the hopeless passivity of the people in this desolate land made it seem as if both the minds and bodies of the Irish were enslaved." Kelly goes on to write: "Throughout the Irish tracts and poems, Swift continually vacillates as to whether the Irish are servile because of some defect within their character or whether their sordid condition is the result of a calculated policy from without to reduce them to brutishness. Although no one has done so, similar questions could be asked about the Yahoos, who are slaves to the Houyhnhnms." However, Kelly does not suggest a wholesale equivalence between Irish and Yahoos, which would be reductive and omit the various other layers of satire at work in this section.

Language
Part I includes examples of the Lilliputian language, including a paragraph for which Gulliver provides a translation. In his annotated edition of the book published in 1980, Isaac Asimov claims that "making sense out of the words and phrases introduced by Swift...is a waste of time," and these words were invented nonsense. However, Irving Rothman, a professor at University of Houston, points out that the language may have been derived from Hebrew, which Swift had studied at Trinity College Dublin.

Reception
The book was very popular upon release and was commonly discussed within social circles. Public reception widely varied, with the book receiving an initially enthusiastic reaction with readers praising its satire, and some reporting that the satire's cleverness sounded like a realistic account of a man's travels. James Beattie commended Swift’s work for its "truth" regarding the narration and claims that "the statesman, the philosopher, and the critick, will admire his keenness of satire, energy of description, and vivacity of language", noting that even children can enjoy the novel. As popularity increased, critics came to appreciate the deeper aspects of Gulliver’s Travels. It became known for its insightful take on morality, expanding its reputation beyond just humorous satire.

Despite its initial positive reception, the book faced backlash. Viscount Bolingbroke, a friend of Swift and one of the first critics of the book, criticised the author for his overt use of misanthropy. Other negative responses to the book also looked towards its portrayal of humanity, which was considered inaccurate. Swifts’s peers rejected the book on claims that its themes of misanthropy were harmful and offensive. They criticized its satire for exceeding what was deemed acceptable and appropriate, including the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos’s similarities to humans. There was also controversy surrounding the political allegories. Readers enjoyed the political references, finding them humorous. However, members of the Whig party were offended, believing that Swift mocked their politics.

British novelist and journalist William Makepeace Thackeray described Swift's work as "blasphemous", saying its critical view of mankind was ludicrous and overly harsh. He concluded that he could not understand the origins of Swift’s critiques on humanity.

Cultural influences

The term Lilliputian has entered many languages as an adjective meaning "small and delicate". There is a brand of small cigar called Lilliput, and a series of collectable model houses known as "Lilliput Lane". The smallest light bulb fitting (5 mm diameter) in the Edison screw series is called the "Lilliput Edison screw". In Dutch and Czech, the words Lilliputter and lilipután, respectively, are used for adults shorter than 1.30 meters, although in Dutch this term is controversial. Conversely, Brobdingnagian appears in the Oxford English Dictionary as a synonym for very large or gigantic.

In like vein, the term yahoo is often encountered as a synonym for ruffian or thug. In the Oxford English Dictionary it is defined as "a rude, noisy, or violent person" and its origins attributed to Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

In the discipline of computer architecture, the terms big-endian and little-endian are used to describe two possible ways of laying out bytes of data in computer memory. The terms derive from one of the satirical conflicts in the book, in which two religious sects of Lilliputians are divided between those who crack open their soft-boiled eggs from the little end, the "Little-endians", and those who use the big end, the "Big-endians". The nomenclature was chosen as an irony, since the choice of which byte-order method to use is technically trivial (both are equally good), but actually still important: systems which do it one way are thus incompatible with those that do it the other way, and so it shouldn't be left to each individual designer's choice, resulting in a "holy war" over a triviality.

It has been pointed out that the long and vicious war which started after a disagreement about which was the best end to break an egg is an example of the narcissism of small differences, a term Sigmund Freud coined in the early 1900s.

In other works
Many sequels followed the initial publishing of the Travels. The earliest of these was the anonymously authored Memoirs of the Court of Lilliput, published 1727, which expands the account of Gulliver's stays in Lilliput and Blefuscu by adding several gossipy anecdotes about scandalous episodes at the Lilliputian court. Abbé Pierre Desfontaines, the first French translator of Swift's story, wrote a sequel, Le Nouveau Gulliver ou Voyages de Jean Gulliver, fils du capitaine Lemuel Gulliver (The New Gulliver, or the travels of John Gulliver, son of Captain Lemuel Gulliver), published in 1730. Gulliver's son has various fantastic, satirical adventures.

The traces of Swift's work can be found in the work of some modern Science Fiction writers. Isaac Asimov's Shah Guido G describes a flying island which dominates the lands underneath, and a large portion of Robert Heinlein's Starman Jones takes place on a planet where intelligent "horses" dominate wild Yahoo-like humanoids.

In music
Georg Philipp Telemann wrote a Gulliver Suite for 2 violins without bass between 1728 and 1729. It includes a "Lilliputian" chaconne, a "Brobigdinian" gigue as well as a Loure of the "well-mannered houyhnhnms" combined with a Fury of the "naughty yahoos".

Film

 * Gulliver's Travels Among the Lilliputians and the Giants, a 1902 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès
 * Gulliver's Travels, a 1924 Austrian silent adventure film
 * Gulliver Mickey, a 1934 film in the Mickey Mouse cartoon series
 * The New Gulliver, a 1935 Soviet film
 * Gulliver's Travels, a 1939 American animated film
 * The 3 Worlds of Gulliver, a 1960 American film loosely based on the novel
 * Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon, a 1965 Japanese animated film featuring Gulliver as a character
 * Gulliver's Travels, a 1977 British-Belgian film starring Richard Harris
 * Gulliver's Travels, a 1983 Spanish animated film by Cruz Delgado
 * Gulliver's Travels, a 1996 animated film by Golden Films
 * Crayola Kids Adventures: Tales of Gulliver's Travels, a 1997 direct-to-video film starring Adam Wylie
 * Jajantaram Mamantaram, a 2003 Indian film starring Jaaved Jaaferi
 * Gulliver's Travel, a 2005 Indian animated film
 * Gulliver's Travels, a 2010 American film starring Jack Black

Television

 * Gulliver in the Country of Dwarfs, a 1974 Hungarian television film starring László Sinkó as Gulliver.
 * Gulliver's Travels, a 1979 television special produced by Hanna-Barbera. The same studio produced The Adventures of Gulliver in 1968. Gary Gulliver and his dog Tag are pursued by a ship's captain; he is aided by Lilliputians Bunko, Eager, Glum, Flirtatia, and King Pomp.
 * Gulliver in the Country of Giants, a 1980 Hungarian television film starring András Kozák as Gulliver.
 * Gulliver in Lilliput, a 1982 television serial produced by the BBC and aired in 4 parts; concertrating on the "Lilliput" section, the serial featured Andrew Burt as Gulliver.
 * Saban's Gulliver's Travels, a 1992 French animated TV series
 * Gulliver's Travels, a 1996 American TV miniseries starring Ted Danson

Radio

 * Gulliver's Travels, a 1999 radio adaptation in the Radio Tales series
 * Brian Gulliver's Travels, a satirical radio series starring Neil Pearson
 * Gulliver's Travels, a 2012 BBC Radio 4 production starring Arthur Darvill, adapted in three parts by Matthew Broughton

Editions
The standard edition of Jonathan Swift's prose works is the Prose Writings in 16 volumes, edited by Herbert Davis et al.
 * Swift, Jonathan Gulliver's Travels (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2008) ISBN 978-0141439495. Edited with an introduction and notes by Robert DeMaria Jr. The copytext is based on the 1726 edition with emendations and additions from later texts and manuscripts.
 * Swift, Jonathan Gulliver's Travels (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) ISBN 978-0192805348. Edited with an introduction by Claude Rawson and notes by Ian Higgins. Essentially based on the same text as the Essential Writings listed below with expanded notes and an introduction, although it lacks the selection of criticism.
 * Swift, Jonathan The Essential Writings of Jonathan Swift (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009) ISBN 978-0393930658. Edited with an introduction by Claude Rawson and notes by Ian Higgins. This title contains the major works of Swift in full, including Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Tale of a Tub, Directions to Servants and many other poetic and prose works. Also included is a selection of contextual material, and criticism from Orwell to Rawson. The text of GT is taken from Faulkner's 1735 edition.
 * Swift, Jonathan Gulliver's Travels (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001) ISBN 0393957241. Edited by Albert J. Rivero. Based on the 1726 text, with some adopted emendations from later corrections and editions. Also includes a selection of contextual material, letters, and criticism.

title: Gulliver's Travels


text:
Levee

A levee ( or ), dike (American English), dyke (Commonwealth English), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is a structure used to keep the course of rivers from changing and to protect against flooding of the area adjoining the river or coast. It is usually earthen and often runs parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastlines.

Levees can be naturally occurring ridge structures that form next to the bank of a river or be an artificially constructed fill or wall that regulates water levels. However, levees can be bad for the environment. Floodwalls are a more confined alternative.

Ancient civilizations in the Indus Valley, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and China all built levees. Today, levees can be found around the world, and failures of levees due to erosion or other causes can be major disasters, such as the catastrophic 2005 levee failures in Greater New Orleans that occurred as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

Etymology
Speakers of American English use the word levee, from the French word levée (from the feminine past participle of the French verb lever, 'to raise'). It originated in New Orleans a few years after the city's founding in 1718 and was later adopted by English speakers. The name derives from the trait of the levee's ridges being raised higher than both the channel and the surrounding floodplains.

The modern word dike or dyke most likely derives from the Dutch word dijk, with the construction of dikes well attested as early as the 11th century. The 126 km Westfriese Omringdijk, completed by 1250, was formed by connecting existing older dikes. The Roman chronicler Tacitus mentions that the rebellious Batavi pierced dikes to flood their land and to protect their retreat (70 CE). The word dijk originally indicated both the trench and the bank. It closely parallels the English verb to dig.

In Anglo-Saxon, the word dic already existed and was pronounced as dick in northern England and as ditch in the south. Similar to Dutch, the English origins of the word lie in digging a trench and forming the upcast soil into a bank alongside it. This practice has meant that the name may be given to either the excavation or to the bank. Thus Offa's Dyke is a combined structure and Car Dyke is a trench – though it once had raised banks as well. In the English Midlands and East Anglia, and in the United States, a dike is what a ditch is in the south of England, a property-boundary marker or drainage channel. Where it carries a stream, it may be called a running dike as in Rippingale Running Dike, which leads water from the catchwater drain, Car Dyke, to the South Forty Foot Drain in Lincolnshire (TF1427). The Weir Dike is a soak dike in Bourne North Fen, near Twenty and alongside the River Glen, Lincolnshire. In the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads, a dyke may be a drainage ditch or a narrow artificial channel off a river or broad for access or mooring, some longer dykes being named, e.g., Candle Dyke.

In parts of Britain, particularly Scotland and Northern England, a dyke may be a field wall, generally made with dry stone.

Uses

The main purpose of artificial levees is to prevent flooding of the adjoining countryside and to slow natural course changes in a waterway to provide reliable shipping lanes for maritime commerce over time; they also confine the flow of the river, resulting in higher and faster water flow. Levees can be mainly found along the sea, where dunes are not strong enough, along rivers for protection against high floods, along lakes or along polders. Furthermore, levees have been built for the purpose of impoldering, or as a boundary for an inundation area. The latter can be a controlled inundation by the military or a measure to prevent inundation of a larger area surrounded by levees. Levees have also been built as field boundaries and as military defences. More on this type of levee can be found in the article on dry-stone walls.

Levees can be permanent earthworks or emergency constructions (often of sandbags) built hastily in a flood emergency.

Some of the earliest levees were constructed by the Indus Valley civilization (in Pakistan and North India from c. 2600 BCE) on which the agrarian life of the Harappan peoples depended. Levees were also constructed over 3,000 years ago in ancient Egypt, where a system of levees was built along the left bank of the River Nile for more than 600 mi, stretching from modern Aswan to the Nile Delta on the shores of the Mediterranean. The Mesopotamian civilizations and ancient China also built large levee systems. Because a levee is only as strong as its weakest point, the height and standards of construction have to be consistent along its length. Some authorities have argued that this requires a strong governing authority to guide the work and may have been a catalyst for the development of systems of governance in early civilizations. However, others point to evidence of large-scale water-control earthen works such as canals and/or levees dating from before King Scorpion in Predynastic Egypt, during which governance was far less centralized.

Another example of a historical levee that protected the growing city-state of Mēxihco-Tenōchtitlan and the neighboring city of Tlatelōlco, was constructed during the early 1400s, under the supervision of the tlahtoani of the altepetl Texcoco, Nezahualcoyotl. Its function was to separate the brackish waters of Lake Texcoco (ideal for the agricultural technique Chināmitls) from the fresh potable water supplied to the settlements. However, after the Europeans destroyed Tenochtitlan, the levee was also destroyed and flooding became a major problem, which resulted in the majority of The Lake being drained in the 17th century.

Levees are usually built by piling earth on a cleared, level surface. Broad at the base, they taper to a level top, where temporary embankments or sandbags can be placed. Because flood discharge intensity increases in levees on both river banks, and because silt deposits raise the level of riverbeds, planning and auxiliary measures are vital. Sections are often set back from the river to form a wider channel, and flood valley basins are divided by multiple levees to prevent a single breach from flooding a large area. A levee made from stones laid in horizontal rows with a bed of thin turf between each of them is known as a spetchel.

Artificial levees require substantial engineering. Their surface must be protected from erosion, so they are planted with vegetation such as Bermuda grass in order to bind the earth together. On the land side of high levees, a low terrace of earth known as a banquette is usually added as another anti-erosion measure. On the river side, erosion from strong waves or currents presents an even greater threat to the integrity of the levee. The effects of erosion are countered by planting suitable vegetation or installing stones, boulders, weighted matting, or concrete revetments. Separate ditches or drainage tiles are constructed to ensure that the foundation does not become waterlogged.

River flood prevention

Prominent levee systems have been built along the Mississippi River and Sacramento River in the United States, and the Po, Rhine, Meuse River, Rhône, Loire, Vistula, the delta formed by the Rhine, Maas/Meuse and Scheldt in the Netherlands and the Danube in Europe. During the Chinese Warring States period, the Dujiangyan irrigation system was built by the Qin as a water conservation and flood control project. The system's infrastructure is located on the Min River, which is the longest tributary of the Yangtze River, in Sichuan, China.

The Mississippi levee system represents one of the largest such systems found anywhere in the world. It comprises over 3500 mi of levees extending some 1000 km along the Mississippi, stretching from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to the Mississippi delta. They were begun by French settlers in Louisiana in the 18th century to protect the city of New Orleans. The first Louisiana levees were about 3 ft high and covered a distance of about 50 mi along the riverside. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in conjunction with the Mississippi River Commission, extended the levee system beginning in 1882 to cover the riverbanks from Cairo, Illinois to the mouth of the Mississippi delta in Louisiana. By the mid-1980s, they had reached their present extent and averaged 24 ft in height; some Mississippi levees are as high as 50 ft. The Mississippi levees also include some of the longest continuous individual levees in the world. One such levee extends southwards from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, for a distance of some 380 mi. The scope and scale of the Mississippi levees has often been compared to the Great Wall of China.

The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) recommends and supports cellular confinement technology (geocells) as a best management practice. Particular attention is given to the matter of surface erosion, overtopping prevention and protection of levee crest and downstream slope. Reinforcement with geocells provides tensile force to the soil to better resist instability.

Artificial levees can lead to an elevation of the natural riverbed over time; whether this happens or not and how fast, depends on different factors, one of them being the amount and type of the bed load of a river. Alluvial rivers with intense accumulations of sediment tend to this behavior. Examples of rivers where artificial levees led to an elevation of the riverbed, even up to a point where the riverbed is higher than the adjacent ground surface behind the levees, are found for the Yellow River in China and the Mississippi in the United States.

Coastal flood prevention
Levees are very common on the marshlands bordering the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada. The Acadians who settled the area can be credited with the original construction of many of the levees in the area, created for the purpose of farming the fertile tidal marshlands. These levees are referred to as dykes. They are constructed with hinged sluice gates that open on the falling tide to drain freshwater from the agricultural marshlands and close on the rising tide to prevent seawater from entering behind the dyke. These sluice gates are called "aboiteaux". In the Lower Mainland around the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, there are levees (known locally as dikes, and also referred to as "the sea wall") to protect low-lying land in the Fraser River delta, particularly the city of Richmond on Lulu Island. There are also dikes to protect other locations which have flooded in the past, such as the Pitt Polder, land adjacent to the Pitt River, and other tributary rivers.

Coastal flood prevention levees are also common along the inland coastline behind the Wadden Sea, an area devastated by many historic floods. Thus the peoples and governments have erected increasingly large and complex flood protection levee systems to stop the sea even during storm floods. The biggest of these are the huge levees in the Netherlands, which have gone beyond just defending against floods, as they have aggressively taken back land that is below mean sea level.

Spur dykes or groynes
These typically man-made hydraulic structures are situated to protect against erosion. They are typically placed in alluvial rivers perpendicular, or at an angle, to the bank of the channel or the revetment, and are used widely along coastlines. There are two common types of spur dyke, permeable and impermeable, depending on the materials used to construct them.

Natural examples
Natural levees commonly form around lowland rivers and creeks without human intervention. They are elongated ridges of mud and/or silt that form on the river floodplains immediately adjacent to the cut banks. Like artificial levees, they act to reduce the likelihood of floodplain inundation.

Deposition of levees is a natural consequence of the flooding of meandering rivers which carry high proportions of suspended sediment in the form of fine sands, silts, and muds. Because the carrying capacity of a river depends in part on its depth, the sediment in the water which is over the flooded banks of the channel is no longer capable of keeping the same number of fine sediments in suspension as the main thalweg. The extra fine sediments thus settle out quickly on the parts of the floodplain nearest to the channel. Over a significant number of floods, this will eventually result in the building up of ridges in these positions and reducing the likelihood of further floods and episodes of levee building.

If aggradation continues to occur in the main channel, this will make levee overtopping more likely again, and the levees can continue to build up. In some cases, this can result in the channel bed eventually rising above the surrounding floodplains, penned in only by the levees around it; an example is the Yellow River in China near the sea, where oceangoing ships appear to sail high above the plain on the elevated river.

Levees are common in any river with a high suspended sediment fraction and thus are intimately associated with meandering channels, which also are more likely to occur where a river carries large fractions of suspended sediment. For similar reasons, they are also common in tidal creeks, where tides bring in large amounts of coastal silts and muds. High spring tides will cause flooding, and result in the building up of levees.

Failures and breaches
Both natural and man-made levees can fail in a number of ways. Factors that cause levee failure include overtopping, erosion, structural failures, and levee saturation. The most frequent (and dangerous) is a levee breach. Here, a part of the levee actually breaks or is eroded away, leaving a large opening for water to flood land otherwise protected by the levee. A breach can be a sudden or gradual failure, caused either by surface erosion or by subsurface weakness in the levee. A breach can leave a fan-shaped deposit of sediment radiating away from the breach, described as a crevasse splay. In natural levees, once a breach has occurred, the gap in the levee will remain until it is again filled in by levee building processes. This increases the chances of future breaches occurring in the same location. Breaches can be the location of meander cutoffs if the river flow direction is permanently diverted through the gap.

Sometimes levees are said to fail when water overtops the crest of the levee. This will cause flooding on the floodplains, but because it does not damage the levee, it has fewer consequences for future flooding.

Among various failure mechanisms that cause levee breaches, soil erosion is found to be one of the most important factors. Predicting soil erosion and scour generation when overtopping happens is important in order to design stable levee and floodwalls. There have been numerous studies to investigate the erodibility of soils. Briaud et al. (2008) used Erosion Function Apparatus (EFA) test to measure the erodibility of the soils and afterwards by using Chen 3D software, numerical simulations were performed on the levee to find out the velocity vectors in the overtopping water and the generated scour when the overtopping water impinges the levee. By analyzing the results from EFA test, an erosion chart to categorize erodibility of the soils was developed. Hughes and Nadal in 2009 studied the effect of combination of wave overtopping and storm surge overflow on the erosion and scour generation in levees. The study included hydraulic parameters and flow characteristics such as flow thickness, wave intervals, surge level above levee crown in analyzing scour development. According to the laboratory tests, empirical correlations related to average overtopping discharge were derived to analyze the resistance of levee against erosion. These equations could only fit to the situation, similar to the experimental tests, while they can give a reasonable estimation if applied to other conditions.

Osouli et al. (2014) and Karimpour et al. (2015) conducted lab scale physical modeling of levees to evaluate score characterization of different levees due to floodwall overtopping.

Another approach applied to prevent levee failures is electrical resistivity tomography (ERT). This non-destructive geophysical method can detect in advance critical saturation areas in embankments. ERT can thus be used in monitoring of seepage phenomena in earth structures and act as an early warning system, e.g., in critical parts of levees or embankments.

Negative Impacts
Large scale structures designed to modify natural processes inevitably have some drawbacks or negative impacts.

Ecological impact
Levees interrupt floodplain ecosystems that developed under conditions of seasonal flooding. In many cases, the impact is two-fold, as reduced recurrence of flooding also facilitates land-use change from forested floodplain to farms.

Increased height
In a natural watershed, floodwaters spread over a landscape and slowly return to the river. Downstream, the delivery of water from the area of flooding is spread out in time. If levees keep the floodwaters inside a narrow channel, the water is delivered downstream over a shorter time period. The same volume of water over a shorter time interval means higher river stage (height). As more levees are built upstream, the recurrence interval for high-water events in the river increases, often requiring increases in levee height.

Levee breaches produce high-energy flooding
During natural flooding, water spilling over banks rises slowly. When a levee fails, a wall of water held back by the levee suddenly pours out over the landscape, much like a dam break. Impacted areas far from a breach may experience flooding similar to a natural event, while damage near a breach can be catastrophic, including carving out deep holes and channels in the nearby landscape.

Prolonged flooding after levee failure
Under natural conditions, floodwaters return quickly to the river channel as water-levels drop. During a levee breach, water pours out into the floodplain and moves down-slope where it is blocked from return to the river. Flooding is prolonged over such areas, waiting for floodwater to slowly infiltrate and evaporate.

Subsidence and seawater intrusion
Natural flooding adds a layer of sediment to the floodplain. The added weight of such layers over many centuries makes the crust sink deeper into the mantle, much like a floating block of wood is pushed deeper into the water if another board is added on top. The momentum of downward movement does not immediately stop when new sediment layers stop being added, resulting in subsidence (sinking of land surface). In coastal areas, this results in land dipping below sea level, the ocean migrating inland, and salt-water intruding into freshwater aquifers.

Coastal sediment loss
Where a large river spills out into the ocean, the velocity of the water suddenly slows and its ability to transport sand and silt decreases. Sediments begin to settle out, eventually forming a delta and extending to the coastline seaward. During subsequent flood events, water spilling out of the channel will find a shorter route to the ocean and begin building a new delta. Wave action and ocean currents redistribute some of the sediment to build beaches along the coast. When levees are constructed all the way to the ocean, sediments from flooding events are cut off, the river never migrates, and elevated river velocity delivers sediment to deep water where wave action and ocean currents cannot redistribute. Instead of a natural wedge shaped delta forming, a "birds-foot delta" extends far out into the ocean. The results for surrounding land include beach depletion, subsidence, salt-water intrusion, and land loss.

title: Levee