Richard Koenigsberg and Mei Ha Chan in front of my apartment at 16 West 95th Street, Manhattan—Library of Social Science's first home. Vamik Volkan & Richard Koenigsberg at a meeting of the ISPP (International Society for Political Psychology).

Library of Social Science is a Book Exhibit Management Company— and a scholarly research institute bringing together the world’s greatest thinkers to explore the sources and meanings of collective forms of violence.’

It began with a meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology in Secaucus, NJ, July 1988. The mission of studying collective forms of violence—and of organizing book exhibits were united at the beginning.

Library of Social Science was founded in April 1975 with the publication of Hitler’s Ideology (click through the link for information on the e-book, available now for $1.98). One thousand hardbound copies (with a nice dust jacket) were delivered to my one-bedroom apartment on West 95th Street. From this point forward—having abandoned other “jobs”—I was on my own, a complete unknown.

I focused my energies on selling my book, and was successful at getting Hitler’s Ideology into the hands of important scholars in the field—and to turn my book into a best-seller in the college library market. Marketing my book occupied my time for well over a year.

Eleven years after the publication of Hitler’s Ideology (having had no contact with the academic world during this time), I received a letter from an Israeli psychoanalyst and writer who had read my books, and invited me to participate in a panel at the International Society of Political Psychology (he had written two articles on “Border Symbolism”).

I had never attended an academic conference before but I said, what the hell—let’s give it a shot. To my surprise, Falk joined me up with Dr. Vamik Volkan, perhaps the most prominent political psychologist in the world (subsequently nominated four times for the Nobel Peace Prize).

The International Society of Political Psychology was founded in 1978 by Jeanne N. Knutson of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. After her death in 1981, Denis Snook (a student of Knutson’s with a PhD in Political Science) served as Conference Director.

Denis organized a little book exhibit for the 1988 ISPP conference (as he had, apparently, at previous meetings)—and invited me to participate. I said, what the hell—let’s give it a shot. I brought some of the titles I’d been selling to libraries and with my partner, Mei Ha Chan, set up two tables of books (perhaps 14 titles).

So there I was at last, returning to the academic world after all those years wandering around Manhattan: uniting my skills as a salesman (creating a book exhibit) and a social scientist (giving a presentation). This event marked my return to “civilization”—the beginning of the end of the “Nights on Broadway.”