The end of the Second World War initiated a period of transition in Italy. The fall of the fascist regime and the implementation of a new constitution in a new republic signaled a dramatic break with the past. But in a period of rebuilding and recovery, the need for stability meant that transformation could be neither immediate nor total. In topics ranging from defining internal enemies to defining feminine beauty, the papers in this panel explore points of continuity and rupture in postwar Italy. When and why did administrative and political transition occur? How did a variety of political and intellectual figures imagine the future of a post-fascist Italy during the tumult of the immediate postwar? Which aspects of the fascist and pre-fascist past did Italians cling to as they faced a process of redefining a tarnished national identity? How did that process shape Italian social, political, and intellectual life in the second half of the twentieth century? These questions allow us to explore the tensions between stability and transformation in a historical period of immense uncertainty.