It is widely believed that the universe we see today formed in a hierarchical statistical process driven by cold dark matter (CDM). This simple prescription seems to account for much of what we see on the largest scales, but breaks down on cluster scales. CDM is a highly incomplete model which needs to incorporate many physical phenomena to stand any chance of accounting for how galaxies like our own came into existence. We are many years from achieving this goal regardless of what one might deduce from the daily outpourings of astro-ph.

In collaboration with Ken Freeman, I am attempting to unify much of what we have learnt from far-field cosmology with the complex "fossil record" provided by the Galaxy and the Local Group. In this talk, I will discuss some of the issues that have come to light.