Visionary. Iconoclast. Rebel. William Trufant Foster set out in 1911 to launch the 'ideal college', and succeeded in building an intellectual liberal arts powerhouse that over the next century would perpetually seek to break the hard crust of custom and orthodoxy. Drawing from interviews with more than 1, 400 people and from unpublished memoirs, John Sheehy weaves together a riveting story of this unique community's early formation and its ongoing quest to bring Foster's vision to life.