The Rarified Air of the Modern

Airplanes and Technological Modernity in the Andes

Willie Hiatt

Explores the transnational character of aviation and demonstrates how Peru's history has been intertwined with Western history
Analyzes how Peruvians mobilized and understood a specific technology to construct a modern identity and articulate historical narratives aligned with the West
Highlights how technology brought together diverse regions to illuminate a shared national vision

The Rarified Air of the Modern

Airplanes and Technological Modernity in the Andes

Willie Hiatt

Description

From the moment news reached Peru in 1910 that Jorge Chávez Dartnell, a pilot of Peruvian parentage, had become the first man to fly across the Alps, aviation fired the imagination of the masses in his home country. His and other Peruvian pilots' achievements generated great optimism that this technology could lift Peru out of its self-perceived backwardness and transform it into a modern nation.

Though poor infrastructure, economic woes, a dearth of technical expertise, and frequent pilot deaths slowed Peru's domestic aviation project, diverse groups saw in airplanes their own visions for Peruvian renewal. In this book, Willie Hiatt shows how politicians, businessmen, and military officials promoted the project as critical to the nation. At the same time, indigenous communities and provincial residents willingly gave up land for airfields, raised money to purchase aircraft for the military, named airplanes after sponsoring civic groups, towns, and regions, and breached police cordons at flying exhibitions to get close-up looks at planes and pilots. By 1928, three commercial lines were transporting passengers and goods from far-flung regions of the Amazon, highlands, and coast to Lima and beyond.

Tracing the development of Peruvian aviation from heroic individual feats to essential infrastructure, The Rarified Air of the Modern shows how Peruvians mobilized airplanes to reflect their technological progress, their modern identity, and their nation's intertwining with the history of the West.

The Rarified Air of the Modern

Airplanes and Technological Modernity in the Andes

Willie Hiatt

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Airplanes and Historical Horizons on the Periphery
Chapter 1: Modernity's Surprise Landing in the Andes, 1910-11
Chapter 2: Peruvian Air Farce, 1919-30
Chapter 3: Flying "Cholo"
Chapter 4: High Technology in the Jungle
Chapter 5: The Window Seat of Modernity
Chapter 6: When Technology Bombs
Epilogue: Andeans and Airplanes after 1950

Notes
Bibliography
Index

The Rarified Air of the Modern

Airplanes and Technological Modernity in the Andes

Willie Hiatt

Author Information

Willie Hiatt is an Associate Professor of History at Long Island University, Post Campus.

The Rarified Air of the Modern

Airplanes and Technological Modernity in the Andes

Willie Hiatt

Reviews and Awards

"delightfully written" -- Julio F. Carrión, Latin American Research Review

"A very good read....This study, of how aviation enthusiasts in Peru sought to modernize their country with the flying machine, devotes a lot of space not only to the theories and practice of modernization, but also in some instances to race relations, transportation, imagination, political and economic peripheries, binaries, and, really at the core of this study, the making of Peru's national character by riding, or flying I should say, the vehicle of the airplane....This book succeeds in describing the articulation between the desires of the Peruvian elites and oligarchs to lead Peru into a new national state"--L.A. Clayton, American Historical Review

"An original contributor to scholars interested in Latin American history and Science and Technology Studies (STS)....By revisiting Peruvian modernization through the lens of aviation, Hiatt brings a more nuanced view of the tumultuous path to Andean modernity while highlighting both historical episodes and actors that had been obscured by economic and political approaches."--Jose Ragas, Journal of Latin American Studies

"Hiatt is consistently able to demonstrate how Peruvian elites viewed their country and their fellow citizens: alternating between hope and despair over the country's future with roughly equal measures of defeatism and unbridled enthusiasm."--Marten Brienen, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies

"This intricate history of the Andes, pilots, aircrafts, entrepreneurs, elites, politicians, and ultimately the drive to develop Peru into a more modern nation is well told and well documented. Overall, this detailed and intricately woven history of personalities, politics, international relations, and technology is a strong contribution to the history of both Peru and South America...Recommended."--A. M. Strauss, CHOICE

"The Rarified Air of the Modern is a story not only about airplanes and the Andes, but also about how a nation-from its indigenous residents in the mountains and jungle to its entrepreneurs in Cuzco and Lima-imagined its future. As Willie Hiatt explains in elegant prose, those futures looked different to everyone. And those dreams often crashed along with the airplanes themselves. What makes this book so compelling is that it relates an untold and essential history of Peru and South America, and also that it grapples with an essential and timeless issue for societies everywhere: the ways people (and governments) place faith in technology-and the folly of those misplaced hopes-to resolve national problems that span from transportation and communication to turbulent race relations and economic stagnation."--Mark Carey, author of In the Shadow of Melting Glaciers: Climate Change and Andean Society

"Impeccably researched, stylistically elegant, and thoughtful. Hiatt engagingly tells the story of how the adoption of aviation excited and stimulated the popular collective imaginary of a country trying to shake off the archaic past to become a modern, unified, and developed nation."--Peter Klarén, George Washington University

"Combining wide-ranging sources with penetrating analysis, The Rarified Air of the Modern offers an expertly researched and thought-provoking account of the airplane's influence on Peruvian culture. By demonstrating the complex (and at times contradictory) ways in which the quintessential technological symbol of the twentieth century has shaped the contested identities of a 'backward' and peripheral nation, Hiatt greatly expands our understanding of the airplane's continuing impact as a global instrument of modernization."--Scott W. Palmer, author of Dictatorship of the Air: Aviation Culture and the Fate of Modern Russia