Hōshō, the First Aircraft Carrier, and HMS Queen Elizabeth - and Cocaine

Available for over a year

1922: The Birth of Now - Ten programmes in which Matthew Sweet investigates objects and events from 1922, the crucial year for modernism, that have an impact today. 8. The Hōshō Aircraft carrier Japan’s Hōshō was the first purpose built aircraft carrier, launched in December 1922, combining land (well, something solid), sea and sky, and drawing on the Modernist fascination with speed and technology - think of the Italian Vorticists - for the purposes of war. Britain has invested in its largest warship ever, aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth , recently returned from making the UK’s presence felt around the world, and HMS Prince of Wales. Matthew speaks to engineer naval architect Professor David Andrews and Japanese historian Dr Satona Suzuki about them, and considers the symbolic significance of the aircraft carrier. With Modernism's obsession with speed it's no wonder that it was partly fuelled by cocaine, much of it, surprisingly, produced by Japan. Matthew looks into this, the fear of the use cocaine, and the consequent anti-orientalism that grew in 1922. Producer: Julian May