Mexican Icarus: Aviation and the Modernization of Mexican Identity, 1928–1960 by Peter B. Soland (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by:

• Mexican Icarus: Aviation and the Modernization of Mexican Identity, 1928–1960 by Peter B. Soland
• Michael K. Bess (bio)

Mexican Icarus: Aviation and the Modernization of Mexican Identity, 1928–1960
By Peter B. Soland. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2023. Pp. 256.

Peter B. Soland’s Mexican Icarus explores the intersection of culture, technology, and celebrity in modernizing Mexico. The author notes that it is “the first monograph-length, scholarly analysis of aviation development in Mexico” (p. 16). He considers how the aviation industry, and aviators in particular, played a key role in the reconstruction of the Mexican state and society following the 1910 revolution. The strengths of Mexican Icarus lie in Soland’s narratives of the people (mostly men, as he acknowledges) who championed aviation; their biographies serve as framing for a larger national narrative of how elites and average people interpreted the importance of flight. For example, Soland writes about Emilio Carranza—from a wealthy northern family and the nephew of a former president—who became known as the “Mexican Lindbergh” for his aeronautical feats. Following a plane crash that took his life, in death he became a “martyr” of modernization, which inspired others to take up flight.

As Soland shows, however, most Mexicans could not afford the costs for training to become pilots. People wrote the left-populist president Lázaro Cárdenas for financial help, but the economic conditions of the 1930s and 1940s meant that many aviators either came from wealth or had backgrounds in the Mexican armed forces. Despite the barriers to flight, Soland does share one inspiring and astonishing case of a young man from the countryside making good on his dream to be an aviator. Miguel Carrillo Ayala built his own plane, relying on manuals translated into Spanish and a focus bordering on obsessive to achieve his goal. The government took notice and supported his work; when he flew from his hometown in Michoacán and landed in Mexico City, the achievement made headlines across the country. Soland notes that the extraordinary circumstances of Carrillo’s journey highlighted the challenges most people faced if they hoped to fly.

Reading Mexican Icarus, one comes away with an understanding that most Mexicans experienced flight as spectators. Whether consuming news reports on the radio or in print, or attending the takeoff and landings of celebrity “goodwill aviators” or the funeral of one of these “martyrs” after a crash, average people were passive consumers of aviation. In this way, the line between aviators and celebrities was a thin one. For decades, aviators like Carranza, Francisco Sarabia, and others captivated the public’s imagination, especially in the collective ceremonies surrounding their deaths. Soland notes a turning point with the plane crash that killed the famous Mexican movie star Pedro Infante, who was also an avid pilot. He writes, “Simply put, there [End Page 1008] were no more aviation celebrities in the country by 1957, only a celebrity who happened to be an aviator” (p. 220).

Throughout the book, Soland ties the national story of aviation in Mexico to broader international currents underway through the twentieth century. In this way, the narrative in Mexican Icarus does not occur within a vacuum, but rather it contextualizes the Mexican experience with flight with parallels elsewhere in Latin America, as well as with aviators in the United States, Western Europe, and the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, while the author does engage with the history and mentions some important authors from the field, he does not dialogue in a meaningful way with the historiography of aviation, leaving readers to make the connections across this scholarly literature.

There are some glaring omissions that Soland does not unpack, however. For instance, despite much attention paid to Compañía Mexicana de Aviación, there is no mention of the country’s other major carrier, Aerovías de México (better known as Aeroméxico), founded in 1934. There is also not a clear understanding of how many Mexicans were flying during this history. Soland shares a graph of government data on “total recorded passengers transported (in thousands)” from 1929 to 1933 (p. 77); comparing it with similar information from other countries would have helped...