Hannes Hafstein's brilliant political career and his poetry made him one of the most important figures in the history and culture of Iceland at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. His twin careers as statesman and as poet are usually explained by his family background, which encouraged simultaneously an appreciation of literature and a sense of public duty. In his administrative and political life Hannes Hafstein was one of the proponents of the modernization of Iceland. He was an active participant in the social, economic, and administrative transformation of his country. His name is remembered especially in connection with the advent of telegraph and telephone service in the island, which from 1904 ended a crippling regional isolation. Finally, in a traditional society that stood outside the major European intellectual currents, Hannes was a crusader for the equality of women, specifically in permitting girls access...