First published by the University of Chicago Press in 1984, the book, a tome of almost 500 pages, covers many aspects of the general theory of relativity.

(the speed of light in vacuum) are set equal to one, except when predictions that can be tested are made.

[5] According to Daniel Finley, a professor at the University of New Mexico, this textbook offers good physics intuition.

[6] Hans C. Ohanian, who taught and researched gravitation at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, opined that General Relativity provides a modern introduction to the subject with emphasis on tensor and topological methods and offers some "sharp insights."

Topics such as geodetic motion in the Schwarzschild metric, the Krushkal extension, and energy extraction from black holes, are handled well while empirical tests of Einstein's theory are barely scratched and the treatment of advanced topics, including cosmology, is just too brief to be useful to students.

[7] Lee Smolin argued that General Relativity bridges the gap between the presentation of the material in older textbooks and the literature.

For example, while the early pioneers of the subject, including Einstein himself, employed coordinate-based methods, researchers since the mid-1960s have switched to coordinate-free formulations, of which Wald's text is entirely based.

Smolin was teaching a course on general relativity to undergraduates as well as graduate students at Yale University using this book and felt satisfied with the results.