James Tenney - A History of 'Consonance' and 'Dissonance'

There is surely nothing in the language of discourse about music that is mote burdened with purely semantic problems than are the terms consonance and dissonance. A comparison of some of the definitions of these words to be found in current dictionaries, harmony textbooks, and books on musical acoustics indicates that there is considerable confusion and disagreement as to their meaning—if indeed there is any meaning still to be attributed to them.

This book discusses consonance and dissonance from antiquity trough the ars antiqua, from ars nova through the seconda practica, from Rameau to the late 20th century.