"Civil Peace" was first published in the Nigerian journal Okike in 1971, and it was collected in the volume Girls at War and Other Stories, published the following year. Girls at War brought together all of the short stories Achebe had written over the past twenty years. As such, the twelve pieces dealt with a wide range of the Nigerian experience, most notably, custom and religious beliefs, the contrast between traditional and contemporary society, as well as the Nigerian civil war. "Civil Peace" is one of the latter, and takes place after the war has ended.

At the time that the collection was published, most contemporary critics responded favorably. The New Yorker extolled Achebe's short pieces as "worldly, intelligent, absorbing." I. A. Menkiti wrote in Library Journal that "the stories are a delight . . . Achebe deals deftly and with unforgettable wit." The Saturday Review complimented Achebe's prose as...