After World War I he resumed his studies in chemistry and mathematics at the Budapest University, and additionally attended lectures in philosophy, music and literature.
He fled from the Romanian prison camp but could not stay in Budapest for long, since he had to face arrest as a supporter of the Soviet Republic.
At the University of Leipzig Manheim completed his studies in philosophy and also attended lectures and seminars in economics and sociology.
In 1928 he wrote his doctoral thesis Zur Logik des konkreten Begriffs (On the Logic of the Concrete Concept[1]) under Hans Freyer and Theodor Litt.
In the beginning he worked as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago (Illinois) which at the time was the stronghold of American empirical social research.
Since then a combination of theoretical competence based on philosophy and methods of empirical social research was the peculiarity in Manheim's scientific work.
His doctoral thesis was written under the influence of strong philosophical tradition, it can, however, be already understood as a contribution to the sociology of knowledge.
He enhanced his work adding studies in cultural anthropology and approaches to social psychology The years in Chicago and Kansas City show Ernest Manheim the empirical researcher.
He studied and wrote about the interrelation between urban life style and psychological disease, about juvenile problems, crime prevention, minorities and prejudices.