This is an account of the rise and growth of the School of American Ballet. The idea was born in London in 1933 when Lincoln Kirstein, then a brilliant and idealistic young Harvard graduate, invited an equally brilliant and young Russian choreographer, George Balanchine, to direct a ballet company in the U.S. Balanchine's reply, "Yes, but first a school," planted the seed that bloomed into one of the most celebrated institutions of its kind. The school...