Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-292) and index.

Historical overview -- Gravitons -- Failure of renormalizability -- Other perturbative approaches -- Technical developments -- The functional renormalization group equation -- The gravitational fixed point -- The asymptotic safety programme.

"This book covers recent developments in the covariant formulation of quantum gravity. Developed in the 1960s by Feynman and DeWitt, by the 1980s this approach seemed to lead nowhere due to perturbative non-renormalizability. The possibility of non-perturbative renormalizability or "asymptotic safety", originally suggested by Weinberg but largely ignored for two decades, was revived towards the end of the century by technical progress in the field of the renormalization group. It is now a very active field of research, providing an alternative to other approaches to quantum gravity. Written by one of the early contributors to this subject, this book provides a gentle introduction to the relevant ideas and calculational techniques. Several explicit calculations gradually bring the reader close to the current frontier of research. The main difficulties and present lines of development are also outlined"-- Provided by publisher.