Monotonic and cyclic torsion was used to investigate the effects of strain path on the development of the as-deformed. and recrystallised microstructure and texture of two aluminium alloys (AA3103 and AA1050). Upon reversal of the torsional direction, the flow stress rapidly reached the same steady state level and grain structure, as those prior to strain reversal. However, monotonic and cyclic deformation to same net strain led to differences in texture and misorientation distribution. The recrystallised grain size after cyclic deformation was larger than that after monotonic deformation to the same net strain. This effect is due to a combination of a reduced driving pressure due to a lower fraction of high angle subgrain boundaries and a reduction of the density of favourable nucleation sites. The recrystallised material showed very weak textures, especially after cyclic torsion. After the largest monotonic strains AA1050 showed a retained B-1 texture, while AA3103 started to display a weak Bs texture.