This is certainly an ambitious work--it contains more than 400 pages of text, an extensive bibliography, and a helpful index (which includes albums, bands/ensembles, drums, drum-product manufacturers, people, pieces, places, and general information). A professional drummer (and also a music journalist), Dean reveals that he wrote the book to satisfy his personal curiosity, to "find out how the modern drums that [he] play[s] today evolved and from where they came." He also suggests that acquiring such knowledge can help make one a better drummer/musician and consumer of music. To that end, this book would be useful as a basic resource for locating additional materials. Dean's writing style and organizational format make for a memoir-type narrative--a book reminiscent of Encyclopedia of Percussion, ed. by John Beck (2nd ed., 2007, CH, Jan'98, 45-2347) but infused with anecdotes (some of them intensely personal). The result is a hybrid work containing threads of scholarship, biography, and personal memoir. It might encourage readers to reflect on their own lives and careers in similar fashion. Summing Up: Recommended.