On the day Japan surrendered in World War II, his mother released him from the hospital and then spent three years giving him physical therapy at home so he could walk without a brace.

[2] During this time, he also published his first book through the University of Kentucky Press titled Salvation and the Savage: An Analysis of Protestant Missions and American Indian Response, 1787-1862.

[4] Berkhofer left Minnesota in 1969 to accept a professorship position at the University of Wisconsin, during which he published A Behavioral Approach to Historical Analysis.

[2] In the book, Berkhofer explained that historians should adapt their discipline by learning from two different groups; social scientists and philosophers of science and history.

[6] During the 1973–1974 academic year, Berkhofer received a National Endowment for the Humanities Senior Fellowship to study the "evolving concepts of the American Indian.