Militarily, economically, and artistically, Den-mark was a much more influential nation in the nineteenth century that it would be in the twentieth. This fact is significant for an understanding of Isak Dinesen (1885-1962), whose life straddles both centuries. When the nineteenth century began, Den-mark controlled an empire: Iceland, Greenland, the Faeroe Islands, and the Danish Virgin Islands were all territories of the Danish crown, and so was the region of Slesvig-Holstein, a corner of the European continent which would, in the war of 1864, fall under the control of Prussia. Not only did Denmark begin the nineteenth century both as a power and with an empire, but in the middle of that century it suffered a humiliating defeat. One effect of the loss was to disabuse the Danes of further geopolitical ambitions and provoke them to seek status by cultural means. For a small country, Denmark...