Jose Vasconcelos: The Cosmic Race By Didier T.

This book review is based upon the book The Cosmic Race, written by Jose Vasconcelos and then translated and annotated by Didier T. Jaen, afterword by Joseba Gabilondo. This book is published by Johns Hopkins University Press and copyright in 1925 by Herederos de Jose Vasconcelos.

Jose Vasconcelos wrote his thesis in 1925 where he predicted the emergence of a new age, aesthetic area, in which the development of humanity would be guided by the free choice of love, beauty and joy. He writes about how the mixture of races will continue to emerge and a new race will be developed, the cosmic Race, a race that will be gifted with the power of creative fantasy over reason and the will. Vasconcelos explains that in the future, he sees a mixture of

Around this time Vasconcelos had already become very interested in Indian philosophy. In 1928, Vasconcelos ran for president, but lost the elections, he returned to Los Angeles and did not go back to Mexico until 1940.

Vasconcelos thesis was written during the first part of the XX century and to many his writing was misinterpreted and seen as a racist theory. Jose Vasconcelos explains that his theory, is a theory of the future development of human awareness. As the author states when we read his Vasconcelos work we have to acknowledge the time of age the Vasconcelos is writing and where he has been and what he has witnessed, learned and where his philosophical thoughts are coming from.

There were times I found this essay sound racist, contradicting,and repetitive as if he wanted the audience to make sure we understood his point of view and how right he was. To enjoy the reading of this book I would remind myself about the time this book was written and the point the author was trying to make about the fifth race that would embrace from the four major races (Black, the Indian, Mongol and the white

Some of the recommendations I give to future readers are to be aware that this piece of writing is very contradictive, but at the end it has a very interesting perspective, one that we can relate too in several ways. I do say to be open minded and not take it offensive when reading this piece of writing, understand that Vasconcelos was writing in a different time and his philosophical ideas were different to ours in many different ways. It does seem that at times he is being racist to different ethnic groups, but I feel that he is only using them to make his point across and explaining about the fifth race that is being