This re-issue, first published in 1964, is the first of a seminal series analysing the development of the study of landforms, from both the geographical and geological point of view, with especial emphasis upon fluvial geomorphology. Volume 1 treats the subject up to the first important statement of the cycle of erosion by W. M. Davis in 1889, and attempts to identify the most significant currents of geomorphic thought, integrating them into the broader contemporary intellectual frameworks with which they were associated.