About a year ago, during a trip to Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, I had the strange and rare experience of emailing a head of state, being invited over for coffee, and knocking on her front door. That’s just Iceland, people told me. You can look up anyone in the phone book, even the president. These days, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir is a former head of state in semi-retirement after sitting in office from 1980 to 1996.  As we talked, I asked her one of the most softball questions in politics:

“What would you say was your biggest accomplishment as president?” I said.

Without even hesitating, she said, “Putting Iceland on the map.”

Most countries, of course, are already on the map. But for Iceland, it was