The underlying thesis of Knowles's study is that Gulliver's Travels explores a dialectic between the commonplace and the wondrous, the fictive Whiggish Gulliver and the factual "Tory" Swift. Knowles views Gulliver's Travels as a major document in eighteenth-century Europe's struggle between progress and reaction, with Swift's combative skepticism resisting all forms of "modernism. " Swift's ironic viewpoint, incisive humor, and fecund imagination lend Gulliver's Travels a richness that has secured its status as a literary masterpiece; readers of Knowles's lucid commentary will come away with a renewed appreciation and understanding of this important classic.