Part One: Introduction.- Chapter 1: The Twenty Years’ Crisis.- Chapter 2: The Pragmatic Consensus.- Part Two: The Rise of Peacebuilding.- Chapter 3: The Birth of a Mission.- Chapter 4: Peacebuilding as Statebuilding.- Part Three – The Impasse of Peacebuilding.- Chapter 5: Civil Society Buildinh.- Chapter 6: The Institutionalist Approach.- Part Four – Beyond Peacebuilding.- Chapter 7: The Turn to the Local.- Chapter 8: The Rise of Resilience.- Part Five - Conclusion.- Chapter 9: The End of The Liberal Episteme.               

“For years, scholars and practitioners have sought to explain why so many international peacebuilding initiatives and programmes have not generated their intended effects, despite significant resources and attention. This masterful book recasts the questions … There is much to commend in this book. It poses a real challenge to peacebuilding practitioners, to scholars, and indeed to anyone who cares about violence and inequality. … Chandler packs a lot of punches in a short, readable, lively book.” (Devon E.A. Curtis, South African Journal of International Affairs, May, 2018)

“Who needs Trump? As David Chandler shows in this book, critical peacebuilders began to lose faith in a liberal international order long before Donald Trump won the White House. Read this book if you want to understand better the rise and fall of the liberal peace over the last twenty years, if you want to uncover the roots of our current impasse, and if you want glimpses of what our post-liberal international order may look like.” (Philip Cunliffe, Editor-in-Chief, International Peacekeeping, University of Kent) “An impressive synthesis of the trajectory of peacebuilding over the past two decades. Chandler's sustained critique of peacebuilding philosophies and practices highlights the perils of good intentions in the absence of critical politics and analysis.” (Keith Krause, Director, Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva) “For more than two decades, peacebuilder policymakers and scholars in the international community have considered at length the question “How do we build peace after war?”  The simple answer, as David Chandler’s masterful review of the evolution of peacebuilding ontology penetratingly demonstrates, is, “We can’t.”  In this incisive volume, Chandler shows exactly why this is the case and how peacebuilding – if it is to occur – is at the end of the day a primarily internal or endogenous process.  Policymakers and scholars will to well to shelve their off-the-shelf solutionist toolkits, logframes, and task matrices after reading this important book.” (Timothy D. Sisk, Professor of International and Comparative Politics, University of Denver)

"Who needs Trump? As David Chandler shows in this book, critical peacebuilders began to lose faith in a liberal international order long before Donald Trump won the White House. Read this book if you want to understand better the rise and fall of the liberal peace over the last twenty years, if you want to uncover the roots of our current impasse, and if you want glimpses of what our post-liberal international order may look like." (Philip Cunliffe, Editor-in-Chief, International Peacekeeping, University of Kent) "An impressive synthesis of the trajectory of peacebuilding over the past two decades. Chandler's sustained critique of peacebuilding philosophies and practices highlights the perils of good intentions in the absence of critical politics and analysis." (Keith Krause, Director, Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva) "For more than two decades, peacebuilder policymakers and scholars in the international community have considered at length the question "How do we build peace after war?" The simple answer, as David Chandler's masterful review of the evolution of peacebuilding ontology penetratingly demonstrates, is, "We can't." In this incisive volume, Chandler shows exactly why this is the case and how peacebuilding - if it is to occur - is at the end of the day a primarily internal or endogenous process. Policymakers and scholars will to well to shelve their off-the-shelf solutionist toolkits, logframes, and task matrices after reading this important book." (Timothy D. Sisk, Professor of International and Comparative Politics, University of Denver)

Offers a groundbreaking study of Peacebuilding from the foremost authority in this area Argues that the era of Peacebuilding - always an ambiguous and contradictory project – is now over Excites and informs the reader with an accessible and lively survey of Peacebuilding and its components