Book excerpt: The interplay of geometry, spectral theory and stochastics has a long and fruitful history, and is the driving force behind many developments in modern mathematics. Bringing together contributions from a 2017 conference at the University of Potsdam, this volume focuses on global effects of local properties. Exploring the similarities and differences between the discrete and the continuous settings is of great interest to both researchers and graduate students in geometric analysis. The range of survey articles presented in this volume give an expository overview of various topics, including curvature, the effects of geometry on the spectrum, geometric group theory, and spectral theory of Laplacian and Schrödinger operators. Also included are shorter articles focusing on specific techniques and problems, allowing the reader to get to the heart of several key topics.