Challenging the mythologies surrounding the early years of the Balanchine-Kirstein enterprise, this book weaves a new and definitive account of a crucial period in dance history. This book dramatically widens our understanding of the birth of American-style ballet in the 1930s, by looking equally at the usual hero, Balanchine, and at his younger partner and fellow-dreamer, Lincoln Kirstein. Steichen's meticulous examination of the two men's often self-contradictory 'enterprise' offers the pleasures of great scholarship - freshness, transparency, intelligence - coupled with exhilarating prose.