Introduction: thinking in cycles
Ideas of geocycles from the ancient world to the renaissance
Straightforward thinking about the earth
Robert Hooke and the first testable-in-principle theory of geological cycles
The founder of geology? James Hutton and the geostrophic cycle, and a French cyclist
Charles Lyell: an earth always changing but ever the same
Cycling in the landscape
Mountains, basins, and sediments
The earth, the solar system, cycles, and glaciation
Cycles in the strata: cyclothems
Sequence stratigraphy and eustasy
The geomagnetic timescale and related matters
Geochemical cycling
Themes and variations.