From World to World – In Search of Perfumes by Dominique Roques

This highly personal combination of memoir, travel experiences, history, and a gentle but insistent treatise on politics and environmental sustainability has been impeccably translated from the original French. 

The author is a businessman whose work caused him to spend decades traversing both familiar and remote locations around the world sourcing the essential oils produced from trees and plants that create the world's most treasured and sophisticated fragrances. His travels took him to the places and resources most recognizable, such as the roses of Bulgaria, and lavender of Provence, to the most mysterious, such as the Amazon jungles of Venezuela for tonka beans, Laos for benzoin, and Madagascar for vanilla. Some of the places he visited could be physically or politically dangerous: Haiti for vetiver, Somaliland for frankincense. 

It is an eye-opening and even mind-bending account that combines the details of the materials and production of these ingredients with the mystical and legendary allure of locations that are far from top of mind for most Westerners, but that doesn't stint on relating the dangers of exploitation of raw materials and the greed of those who profit from them – he does not hesitate to comment on the contrast of the poverty of the workers in some of these places versus the governments and others who manipulate their natural resources as well as their people.

Despite that grounding in the disturbing realities of past colonialism and current profiteering in Africa, Asia, Caribbean and South America, the romantic allure, mysticism, and myth surrounding so many of the substances and extracts that he seeks, and the famous perfumes that are the result combine in the wonderful stories that the author tells. As he says in the prologue, "Perfumes are at once familiar to us, yet mysterious.", then goes on to mention the <i>Diorissimo</i> that his mother wore, and describes how scents immediately bring up some of our most familiar and meaningful memories. The stories of his wanders around the world, and his encounters with the producers of the raw materials create both fascinating and intoxicating reading. Highly recommend.