The evolution of IBP

Antiquity, the medieval period and so on up to the present day. She is, on the whole, more concerned with the place of perfumes in society, literature, politics and science, and with their religious origins in the Far East, than with details of the materials used and the techniques of compounding. Unfortunately, the work is unbalanced, as most of it is concerned with the earlier periods, where admittedly the material is more bizarre and therefore more interesting and amusing for the reader seeking enjoyment rather than information per se. The nineteenth century, where many subtle undertones must exist, is dismissed in a few paragraphs. Another feature that suggests the general reader as the main audience intended is the lack of annotations and references. There is a useful, but very brief, section on 'Further reading', but there is no way of tracing the whereabouts of the large amount of useful data the author displays, nor the precise origins of the frequent quotations.