Study with

Juan Miguel Zunzunegui

Juan Miguel Zunzunegui is a Mexican historian and populariser, author of several books of historical non-fiction, whose channel gathers long-form talks on history, philosophy and critical thinking. The register is that of a lecture: sustained exposition, with no nervous cutting and no gimmicks, in which an idea is carried through to its end. The range of subjects is wide and deliberately cross-cutting. There are lessons in European history ( Charlemagne and the making of Christendom, the darker side of the French Revolution, the Gothic quarter of Barcelona and the reason that city was never a kingdom ) alongside extensive treatment of Mexican history: the exile of Porfirio Díaz, the Noche Triste read as a hinge rather than a defeat, Maximilian of Habsburg, Hernán Cortés. Another strand deals with religion and symbol: the apocryphal gospels, God and Satan as historical constructions, the sacred meanings embedded in the Odyssey. And there is practical philosophy, such as a reading of happiness in Aristotle, plus a travel series in which history is told from the places where it happened. Viewers will find a recognisable method. Zunzunegui dismantles inherited national narratives ( the ones learned at school and repeated without examination ) and shows how they were built and whom they served. He does not swap one myth for another; he teaches suspicion of the very form of the myth. The videos ask for time and attention, and in return offer something scarce: history told with structure, with context and with humour, by someone who plainly enjoys explaining.