José Álvarez Junco

José Álvarez Junco (born 1942) is a Spanish historian, emeritus professor of the History of Thought and Political and Social Movements at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). He is an expert in the study of the nation-building of Spain, nationalisms and the anarchist movement.

Born on 8 November 1942 in Vielha, in the Catalan Pyrenees, he moved young with his family to Villalpando (province of Zamora), where he was raised and spent his youth. He took his highschool studies at the Instituto Claudio Moyano [es], in the provincial capital, Zamora.

He studied law (1959–1964) and political science (1962–1965) at the University of Madrid. A pupil of Luis Díez del Corral and José Antonio Maravall during his university years, he earned a PhD at the UCM reading a thesis on the Spanish anarchist movement supervised by Maravall.

From 1992 to 2000, he held the Prince of Asturias endowed chair at Tufts University. He was also the Chair of the Iberian Study Group at the Harvard University's Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES).

From 2004 to 2008 he was Director of the Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies (CEPC) in Madrid, serving in that capacity as member of the Council of State.

Chair of History of Thought and Political and Social Movements at the UCM, he retired in 2014.

Author

• — (1971). La Comuna en España. Siglo XXI.
• — (1976). La ideología política del anarquismo español, 1868-1910.
• — (1981). Los movimientos obreros en el Madrid del siglo XIX. Madrid: Ayuntamiento de Madrid.
• — (1983). Periodismo y política en el Madrid de fin de siglo: el primer lerrouxismo. Madrid: Ayuntamiento de Madrid.
• — (1990). El "Emperador del Paralelo". Alejandro Lerroux y la demagogia populista. Alianza Editorial.
• — (2001). Mater Dolorosa. La idea de España en el siglo XIX. Taurus Ediciones.
• — (2016). Dioses útiles. Naciones y nacionalismos. Madrid: Galaxia Gutenberg.
• — (2019). A las barricadas. Cultura, identidad y movilización política. Madrid: Ediciones Complutense.