subcategory SA(R) of affine semialgebraic spaces. The theory is new although it borrows from algebraic topology. A highlight is the proof that every generalized topological (co)homology theory has a counterpart in WSA(R) with in some sense "the same", or even better, properties as the topological theory. Thus we may speak of ordinary (=singular) homology groups, orthogonal, unitary or symplectic K-groups, and various sorts of cobordism groups of a semialgebraic set over R. If R is not archimedean then it seems difficult to develop a satisfactory theory of these groups within the category of semialgebraic sets over R: with weakly semialgebraic spaces this becomes easy. It remains for us to interpret the elements of these groups in geometric terms: this is done here for ordinary (co)homology.