La raza cósmica is a Spanish-language book written and published in 1925 by Mexican philosopher, secretary of education, and 1929 presidential candidate José Vasconcelos to express the ideology of a future "fifth race" in the Americas; an agglomeration of all the races in the world with no respect to color or number to erect a new civilization: Universópolis.

José Vasconcelos Calderón, called the "cultural caudillo" of the Mexican Revolution, was an important Mexican writer, philosopher, and politician. He is one of the most influential and controversial personalities in the development of modern Mexico. His philosophy of the "cosmic race" affected all aspects of Mexican sociocultural, political, and economic policies.