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I am a graduate student who wants to begin to get into Quantum Gravity. I've looked on internet for bibliography and I've found a lot of great books, but I would like to start from the beginning (of topics related to quantum gravity, the general relativity and quantum mechanics basis I already have). I'm not looking bibliography of any particular quantum gravity theory, but something more global, like an historical overview, the current state or, if I may ask for too much, any book describing how such theory should be. Also, I'm looking for formal bibliography, not for-all-ages books.

If anyone who's adept into this topic could help me, I would appreciate it so much.

gandalf61
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Vicente Sierra Rosas
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  • Worth pointing out that there are a few other questions related to specific theories (strings, loops) linked under "High Energy Theory" in the overarching books question. The same question also has a few links related to Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetime – Níckolas Alves Feb 02 '22 at 22:51

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I think you would be very interested in the book Conversations on Quantum Gravity edited by J. Armas. The book consists of a series of interviews (37, to be precise) that Armas (who is a theoretical physicist) conducted with researchers in quantum gravity. It is definitely not a textbook or a rigorous review, but many of the interviews dive quite deep into substantive physics, and each interview includes a very thorough list of references to papers on the topics discussed. I don't think you are going to do much better than this for a bird's-eye view of "the field of quantum gravity" as a whole, especially since it's unclear as of yet what "quantum gravity" is even supposed to mean.

d_b
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There's a text by Carlo Rovelli (worldly known for his contributions to Loop Quantum Gravity) telling a brief history of Quantum Gravity from its early stages (back in the 1930s) up to 2000. It is available at arXiv: gr-qc/0006061.

There's also the book Approaches to Quantum Gravity, edited by Daniele Oriti, which includes expositions of many of the main current approaches (including, but not restricted to, strings, loops, asymptotic safety, emergent relativity, discrete quantum gravity, and others). Might be a good start to get an overview of many different things.

R Percacci's An Introduction to Covariant Quantum Gravity and Asymptotic Safety focuses on Asymptotically Safe Quantum Gravity, but it also deals with many other interesting things, such as a historical overview, linearizations, the fact that quantized GR is not perturbatively renormalizable, and so on. Most of its calculations could be a bit more open, but it is a really nice presentation.

Níckolas Alves
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