He has served as honorary president of the University of Bordeaux 3. Pérez's doctoral thesis won the Saintour prize that year. Pérez died on 8 October 2020 in Bordeaux, aged 89. He founded the La Maison des Pays Iberiques, a center for Spanish culture in France, and between 19 Pérez directed the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid, a French cultural institution funded by the French government dedicated to supporting interplay between France and Hispanic cultures. Pérez has worked to spread French and Spanish culture in both directions. Pérez also served as a member of the Directorio del Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). Pérez became a professor of Spanish and Hispanic American civilization at the University of Bordeaux 3. His thesis studied the Revolt of the Comuneros, and remains one of the leading scholarly books on the topics. He completed his doctoral thesis in 1970. In 1955, he was named a lecturer of Spanish by the Superior University of Saint-Cloud. His parents were Spaniards who emigrated from Bocairent in Valencia. Joseph Pérez was born in Laroque-d'Olmes in the Ariège department, which is in the south of France near the Spanish border.

Among his books, he examined the independence movements of Hispanic America Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic Monarchs Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and Philip II of Spain. Pérez specialized in the births of the modern Spanish state and the Latin American nations.

Joseph Pérez (14 January 1931 – 8 October 2020) was a French historian specializing in Spanish history.

The Spanish Inquisition by Joseph Pérez