If it is to present its subject matter coherently a textbook must have a point of view. The perspective of this book is that an adequate appreciation of landform genesis must encompass a knowledge of the large-scale framework of landscapes as well as an understanding of the smaller-scale processes which create individual landforms. An emphasis on small-scale surface processes and their associated landforms has been pervasive in geomorphology since the 1960s, to the point where the larger- scale aspects of landform genesis, and in particular the role of internal mechanisms in influencing the...