This chapter covers the Verein für Sozialpolitik, Sering’s professorship in Bonn, the Althoff System, Bismarck, and Colonialism. It also explores the expulsion of Poles and Jews from eastern Germany in 1885, the involvement of Sering, Schmoller, and Tiedemann in the writing of the memorandum for the creation of the Program of Inner Colonization, and how the program began in 1886. It discusses Sering’s time as a professor in Bonn during 1884 to 1889, and the publication of his book on the North America trip, Die landwirthschaftliche Konkurrenz Nordamerikas in Gegenwart und Zukunft. Landwirthschaft, Kolonisation und Verkehrswesen in den Vereinigten Staaten und in Britisch-Nordamerika (The Agricultural Competition of North America in the Present and Future. Agriculture, Colonization, and Transportation in the United States and in British North America) in 1887. Sering became a professor in Berlin in 1889. Inner Colonization during the Caprivi Era is discussede, alongside Hugenberg and Schwerin. In 1893, Sering published The Inner Colonization in Eastern Germany. Max Weber, who was rabidly anti-Polishm, supported Sering. Sering’s second journey to America was in 1890, where he attended the World’s Fair in Chicago. The chapter also covers the Frederick Jackson Turner Frontier Thesis, Hohenlohe, Werner Sombart, and Socialists of the Chair.

This central chapter turns to written communication to explore its part in regulating and networking theatres and repertoire. It begins with an exploration of the types of information shared between troupes and how discursive networks supported their performances. Although theatres are commonly portrayed as having to compete to survive, this chapter reveals that they also regularly cooperated. By illustrating the equal importance of discursive networks and material exchange among the Großmann (touring), Mainz (ecclesiastical court-affiliated), and Schwerin theatres (secular court-affiliated), it reveals that theatre companies were designed with both court and public audiences in mind, and in practice cultivated a shared repertoire. Programming choices were made to some degree based on location, the status of audiences, tastes of patrons, and access to performance materials. But this chapter argues that such decisions were usually owing to the intense communication of theatrical information and recommendations between theatre directors and enthusiasts – and, ultimately, on the expectations to which a collective imperial culture gave rise.