Conclusion

What made Wilhelm I effective as a political actor that merits a historiographical reassessment? This study’s conclusion argues that he cultivated four spheres and used self-staging to effectuate his agency: the constitutional and institutional arrangements of his office, Imperial Germany’s culture, the German Empire’s composite nationhood, and the wider European and global context of the transformation of monarchical rule. Within these four spheres, Wilhelm used self-staging as his distinct political power, so that the instrumental power and symbolic-expressive power of his office were inextricably intertwined. He understood how to use this power in differing spatial settings, both physical and medial, and how to relate this to various experiences and understandings of temporality. Scholarly assessments which see Wilhelm as the epitome of Prussian virtues are more revealing about the posthumous myths of his persona than his actual workings as a political actor. Rather, his usage of self-staging and cultivation of distinct institutional, cultural, and social spheres enabled him to effectuate his role as German emperor and set the precedent for his successors.