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).

Born on 8 November 1942 in Vielha,[1] in the Catalan Pyrenees, he moved young with his family to Villalpando (province of Zamora), where he was raised and spent his youth.

[2] He took his highschool studies at the Instituto Claudio Moyano [es],[3] in the provincial capital, Zamora.

[2] A pupil of Luis Díez del Corral and José Antonio Maravall during his university years,[4][2] he earned a PhD at the UCM reading a thesis on the Spanish anarchist movement supervised by Maravall.[n.

[3] 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.