Very little is harder to describe than a scent, which is, no doubt, why there have not been many scholarly works on the history of perfume. Until now.

Richard Stamelman, a professor of romance languages and comparative literature at Williams College, has written “Perfume: Joy, Obsession, Scandal, Sin” (Rizzoli, $85), a massive publication (384 pages) that explores the “cultural history of fragrance from 1750 to the present.”

Stamelman writes of perfume’s place in everyday life, starting with the fragrances worn by Cleopatra and Marie Antoinette, as well as the preventive scents worn to ward off the plague. The book delves into almost every aspect of perfume, from its erotic connotations to the art movements that inspired the bottles of some of the world’s most famous fragrances – Chanel No. 5, Shalimar, Arpege and Joy.