Background
He was the brother of architect Juan O'Gorman and the son of painter and mining engineer Cecil Crawford O'Gorman who emigrated to Mexico from Ireland in 1895.
He was the brother of architect Juan O'Gorman and the son of painter and mining engineer Cecil Crawford O'Gorman who emigrated to Mexico from Ireland in 1895.
He graduated in Law (1928) from Escuela Libre de Derecho and with doctorates in Philosophy (1948) and in History (1951) from the UNAM where he was also a faculty member.
He worked for the General National Archive between 1938 and 1952 and wrote several books between 1951 and 1986. He resigned after disagreements over concepts such as the "discovery of America", "encounter between two worlds", "cultural fusion" (or "natural mixing"), names he rejected and instead preferred the terms "empowerment", "domination" and others more according with history. In 1940 his acknowledgements and credentials led him into teaching History at the Philosophy faculty of the Mexico City College.
He was a great admirer of authors such as José Ortega y Gasset, Wilheim Dilthey, Benedeto Croce, Martin Heidegger, among other history writers who kept disagreement with former Mexican historiography, which was full of extremism and with a leaning towards new, unedited documents.
[Academia Mexicana de la Lengua. Mexican Academy of History]
He became a member of the Mexican Academy of the Spanish Language in 1969 and of the Mexican Academy of the Corresponding History of the Real of Madrid, corporation of which he became of director of from 1972 to 1987. Member of the Academia Mexicana de la Historia (1964).
Member of the Academia Mexicana de la Lengua (1969). Emeritus professor of the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores and the UNAM y member of the Junta de Gobierno.