"Peacebuilding" serves as a catch-all term to describe efforts by an array of international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and agencies of foreign states to restore or construct a peaceful society in the wake--or even in the midst--of conflict. Despite this variety, practitioners consider themselves members of a global profession. In The Distinction of Peace, Catherine Goetze investigates the genesis of peacebuilding as a professional field of expertise since the 1960s, its increasing influence, and the ways it reflects global power structures.

Goetze describes how...