Davíd Carrasco is a Mexican American historian of religions noted for books and public lectures on Aztec history and religion and the ways Latinx peoples draw on indigenous, mixed race and African traditions to express their identity, artistic creativity and resistance. Carrasco holds the Neil L. Rudenstine Endowed Chair in the Study of Latin America at Harvard University and was called by Carlos Izcaza, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S. “a man for our time, a man of enormous vitality.” The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes said his book City of Sacrifice is a “brilliant, provocative, timely and eternal book.”

Recipient of the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Carrasco appeared in the PBS series, Native America and the film Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, His best-selling Aztecs: A Very Short Introduction published by Oxford University Press has been praised as an excellent introduction to the myths and politics of the Aztec empire and the ways Chicanos recreate the symbols of the Aztecs and Maya.