Book excerpt: Basic algebraic notions -- Introduction -- A historical perspective in the algebraic context -- Algebraic preliminaries -- Jordan normal form -- Indefinite geometry -- Algebraic curvature tensors -- Hermitian and para-Hermitian geometry -- The Jacobi and skew symmetric curvature operators -- Sectional, Ricci, scalar, and Weyl curvature -- Curvature decompositions -- Self-duality and anti-self-duality conditions -- Spectral geometry of the curvature operator -- Osserman and conformally Osserman models -- Osserman curvature models in signature (2, 2) -- Ivanov-Petrova curvature models -- Osserman Ivanov-Petrova curvature models -- Commuting curvature models -- Basic geometrical notions -- Introduction -- History -- Basic manifold theory -- The tangent bundle, lie bracket, and lie groups -- The cotangent bundle and symplectic geometry -- Connections, curvature, geodesics, and holonomy -- Pseudo-Riemannian geometry -- The Levi-Civita connection -- Associated natural operators -- Weyl scalar invariants -- Null distributions -- Pseudo-Riemannian holonomy -- Other geometric structures -- Pseudo-Hermitian and para-Hermitian structures -- Hyper-para-Hermitian structures -- Geometric realizations -- Homogeneous spaces, and curvature homogeneity -- Technical results in differential equations -- Walker structures -- Introduction -- Historical development -- Walker coordinates -- Examples of Walker manifolds -- Hypersurfaces with nilpotent shape operators -- Locally conformally flat metrics with nilpotent Ricci operator -- Degenerate pseudo-Riemannian homogeneous structures -- Para-Kaehler geometry -- Two-step nilpotent lie groups with degenerate center -- Conformally symmetric pseudo-Riemannian metrics -- Riemannian extensions -- The affine category -- Twisted Riemannian extensions defined by flat connections -- Modified Riemannian extensions defined by flat connections -- Nilpotent Walker manifolds -- Osserman Riemannian extensions -- Ivanov-Petrova Riemannian extensions -- Three-dimensional Lorentzian Walker manifolds -- Introduction -- History -- Three dimensional Walker geometry -- Adapted coordinates -- The Jordan normal form of the Ricci operator -- Christoffel symbols, curvature, and the Ricci tensor -- Locally symmetric Walker manifolds -- Einstein-like manifolds -- The spectral geometry of the curvature tensor -- Curvature commutativity properties -- Local geometry of Walker manifolds with -- Foliated Walker manifolds -- Contact Walker manifolds -- Strict Walker manifolds -- Three dimensional homogeneous Lorentzian manifolds -- Three dimensional lie groups and lie algebras -- Curvature homogeneous Lorentzian manifolds -- Diagonalizable Ricci operator -- Type II Ricci operator -- Four-dimensional Walker manifolds -- Introduction -- History -- Four-dimensional Walker manifolds -- Almost para-Hermitian geometry -- Isotropic almost para-Hermitian structures -- Characteristic classes -- Self-dual Walker manifolds -- The spectral geometry of the curvature tensor -- Introduction -- History -- Four-dimensional Osserman metrics -- Osserman metrics with diagonalizable Jacobi operator -- Osserman Walker type II metrics -- Osserman and Ivanov-Petrova metrics -- Riemannian extensions of affine surfaces -- Affine surfaces with skew symmetric Ricci tensor -- Affine surfaces with symmetric and degenerate Ricci tensor -- Riemannian extensions with commuting curvature operators -- Other examples with commuting curvature operators -- Hermitian geometry -- Introduction -- History -- Almost Hermitian geometry of Walker manifolds -- The proper almost Hermitian structure of a Walker manifold -- Proper almost hyper-para-Hermitian structures -- Hermitian Walker manifolds of dimension four -- Proper Hermitian Walker structures -- Locally conformally Kaehler structures -- Almost Kaehler Walker four-dimensional manifolds -- Special Walker manifolds -- Introduction -- History -- Curvature commuting conditions -- Curvature homogeneous strict Walker manifolds -- Bibliography.