Corbusier in Asbury Park

Not your typical townhouse development 

I really like this little row of townhouses. They're in the northern part of Asbury Park, N.J., and there's nothing like them anywhere nearby. The five townhouses you're looking at are only a part of the development. There's another five behind them, separated by a very pleasant little walkway.

I just love this walkway. Here's another shot. 

I was wondering when these buildings were built, so I scooted over to Monmouth County's Open Public Records Search System. Nine were built in 1930, and one was built in 1931. They are all located in block 3705. 

Here's a link to the OPRS. 

At the front of the walkway between the two pods of five buildings, there is a sign telling people they're at Deal Lake Court. For a long time I had assumed that the walkway was called Deal Lake Court, but the maps I was looking at online indicated that Deal Lake Court is actually the name of the driveway that provides access to the parking lot of the neighboring development. I've decided that this is a problem to be solved another day, and quite possibly by someone other than me. 

Are We Looking at Art Deco?

Last year, Dan Jacobson, who is the mastermind behind a local newspaper called Tri City News, wrote an article about the townhouses in his paper. He reported that he had gotten "hold of documents from the 1930s" that list the developer "as Erwin S. Wolfson." (Tri City News, July 17, 2025, pp. 26, 45. This is a print-only newspaper, so good luck finding it.) 

It turns out that Wolfson went on to build the Pan Am building (now the Met Life building) that looms over Grand Central terminal on Park avenue in New York city. As Jacobson puts it, after his interlude in Asbury Park, Wolfson wound up as "one of the most important builders in the country, and the most prominent in Manhattan." 

Before coming to Asbury Park, Wolfson had been working in real estate in Florida, where Jacobson tells us he absorbed the "Florida deco" style that was so popular in Miami Beach. 

I confess I am perpetually confused by the many different schools of architecture that were swirling around in the early part of the twentieth century, perhaps because they were all influencing one another. All of these new movements were responding to the same stimuli - most particularly the rise of steel and concrete (and glass) as materials that could displace the wood and masonry (stone and brick) that, historically, had been the builder's go-to materials. 

Jacobson calls the Asbury Park development "vintage 1930s art deco." I liked his argument, but I wasn't sure. 

Or Maybe It's Corbusier

Then one day I was in the Free Library in Philadelphia, checking a quote in a Le Corbusier book entitled Vers une architecture - and I saw this drawing.  (The book is also available online. To see it, click here. This is the second edition. The drawing is on page 210.) 

Okay, I said to myself. I was in a library after all, and you're not supposed to shout Eureka! in a library. You might notice a striking similarity, along with considerable differences, between this drawing and the development at Deal Lake Court. To refresh your memory, here's another photo of Deal Lake Court, this one a night shot. 

This little plantation of town homes in Asbury Park was not designed by Corbusier, but I think it was clearly influenced by him. There's a lot more open space in Corbu's drawing, but the general arrangement of masses is strikingly similar, and the thing that puts me over the top is the treatment of the roof, or rooves (I can't resist the occasional obsolete spelling). 

The idea of turning the roof into habitable space was not original with Corbusier. but it was central to his thinking, and worked reasonably well with the new materials that were available. 

I could prattle on, but perhaps I'll just show a few more pictures. These are very nice buildings, and if Corbusier had ever become aware of them, I expect he would have approved. 

Searching for an Architect

I found myself facing a missing link. The developer, Erwin Wolfson, was clearly comfortable working in a number of styles - for instance, the Pan Am (now Met Life) building was designed in the International style by Richard Roth, Walter Gropius, and Pietro Belluschi. If I really wanted to nail down what was going on in Deal Lake Court, I needed to know more about the architect. 

I asked the folks at the Monmouth county archive if they might have any information about the architect, or even just his name, which would appear on plans and other documents. I got a very nice note back saying they didn't have such documentation, and suggesting that I contact the city of Asbury Park. 

And so I found myself filling out and submitting yet another form. This process may sound tedious and repetitive, but I actually enjoy it in small doses. In a few days I received a response stating: "No records responsive to your request." 

So I figured I'd drilled enough dry holes, and couldn't think of any other places to go. I couldn't find anything on the state's website that seemed remotely appropriate. It's possible that there is an Erwin S. Wolfson Archive somewhere that houses his business papers and correspondence. 

But I was done. I can't prove that Deal Lake Court was inspired by Le Corbusier. All I can say is that it really looks that way. To me. 

________

While I was trying to find the architect who designed Deal Lake Court, I decided to ask the kindly electrons of the internet to tell me about any Corbusier-style architects in New Jersey. They helpfully came up with one, and although he has nothing to do with the story at hand, I thought you might like to know a little bit about him. 

Edward Bowser Jr. was born in 1925 and grew up in East Orange, N.J. His father, Edward Sr., was an architectural draftsman. Bowser Jr. graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1948. In 1949 and 1950 he was an apprentice in Le Corbusier's design studio in Paris, working particularly on the Unite d'habitation project in Marseille, which was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2016. 

Bowser then returned to New Jersey and had a successful career primarily designing private homes, but also producing a number of commercial buildings. (For more, see this article in New Jersey Monthly and a very nice short segment from PBS.) 

In 1977, Bowser and his wife, a clothing designer, moved to Ghana as part of the Pan-African Skills Project. In Ghana they opened and ran a vocational school. Bowser also became a close friend of the president of Ghana, Jerry Rawlings. 

In 1995, Bowser died of cerebral malaria. He is buried in Ghana. 

_______

There seems to be some confusion about the publication date of the second edition of Le Corbusier's Vers une architecture. Wikipedia lists it as 1924, footnoting its source as the 2007 English translation by John Goodman, entitled Le Corbusier Toward an Architecture, citing page 41 of the introduction by Jean-Louis Cohen, which asserts a publication date of 1924 but provides no evidence. 

I suspect that Cohen is getting the 1924 date from the introduction to the French second edition, which is dated Novembre 1924 on page vi. I haven't found any other publication date printed in this book. However, the copy I have linked to is the copy received by the Bibliotheque nationale, and it has a date stamped on its front: 1925. This "depot legale" date is technically not a publication date, but it is likely a lot closer than the date on the introduction. It's possible that the Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris has documentation that would settle the publication date definitively, but I'm going to leave the matter here. 

See also Jersey Homesteads, I'm Haunted by Ben Shahn, The Future Began with a Car Crash, Springsteen's Bill of Rights, Bruce Springsteen Almost Didn't Happen, Trumpies in the Closet.

"That all you got, George?"

The good news: Trump will fail.

Ali leans back and lets the ropes do the work.

On October 30, 1974, there was a boxing match in a country which was then called Zaire and is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The promoters called it The Rumble in the Jungle. The contestants were Muhammad Ali, age 32, and George Foreman, age 25.

Foreman was the current heavyweight boxing champion; in 1968 had won a gold medal at the Olympics, and in 1973 he defeated Joe Frazier to become heavyweight champion. That bout lasted two rounds. Foreman was noted for his punching power and physical dominance.

Ali had won Olympic gold in 1960, and in 1964, at the age of 22, he had become heavyweight champion by defeating Sonny Liston. He was noted for his speed and agility - as he put it, "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."

Ali converted to Islam in the early 1960s, and in 1964 he changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali.

The draft 

On April 28, 1967, Ali formally refused to be drafted into the Vietnam war. He appeared in Houston for his scheduled induction but did not step forward at the call of his name, even though he was repeatedly warned that he was committing a felony that could land him in jail for five years.

Ali's position as a conscientious objector, based on both his religious beliefs and his ethical objections to the war, led a federal court in Houston to find him guilty of violating the selective service laws. Ali appealed, and in 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction.

It's interesting to throw these dates up against what else was going in our national timeline. The country turned against the Vietnam war in 1968. The Tet offensive in January was the turning point. In February, Walter Cronkite, possibly the most trusted man in America, returned from a visit to Vietnam and told the people in a special newscast that the war was a stalemate. Not exactly the line from the White House, but President Johnson saw that he was done and, in an act of political self-immolation he told the country on March 31 that he would not run again for president.  We then proceeded in August to the Democratic national convention in Chicago, where the Democratic party did its best to commit suicide, and Richard Nixon was elected president in November.

It seems fair to say that Ali's case went better after this turning point in 1968, but the damage to his career was significant.

After his initial conviction, Ali lost his championship and his boxing license, and his career went into an involuntary sabbatical: He had no fights between March 1967 and October 1970, three and a half empty years at what should have been the peak of his career.

The opponents

Foreman was strongly favored to win the match. He was younger, at age 25; Ali was 32, and his career, as we have seen, had become entangled in some remarkably distracting politics.

There was one question. Foreman had a history of knocking out his opponents in the early rounds. In fact, he won the championship in 1973 by demolishing the formidable Joe Frazier in two rounds. Would Foreman tire in a match that went longer? It was an open question.

Ali went into the fight as a 4-1 underdog. But he had a secret weapon, later called the "rope-a-dope."

Boxing rings are surrounded by rope fences that keep the contestants from falling out of the ring. Boxers occasionally find themselves, for various reasons, with their backs on the ropes, but being "on the ropes" is generally considered a bad sign for a boxer - certainly above "on his knees" or "flat on his back," but still concerning. 

Ali instead turned the ropes to his advantage, pretending to be a victim, using the resiliency of the ropes to absorb some of the energy coming from Foreman's punches, and waiting for Foreman to give him an opening for a counterpunch. The "rope-a-dope" strategy, as it came to be called, worked like gangbusters, and was perhaps particularly effective because it was not expected.

Fabian tactics

I doubt that Ali was aware of this, but his tactics paralleled those of an old Roman general named Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, who had the job of keeping a fellow named Hannibal from destroying Rome.

Quintus Fabius Maximus was called Cunctator, which meant The Delayer. His approach to Hannibal was not to face him directly in a major battle, but instead to slide away and, when Hannibal wasn't looking, nibble at his Achilles tendon.

It worked.

The fight

Back to the Rumble in the Jungle. The first round was fairly standard. Ali was strongly aggressive, attacking at close range. In the second round he switched his approach dramatically, introducing the rope-a-dope and ceding the initiative to Foreman, who expended a lot of energy trying to put his opponent away in an early round, as he had done successfully in previous matches.

By the fifth round Foreman was visibly tired, and his face showed the effect of the many punches Ali had managed to land while playing defense. In the seventh round (probably), while they were in a clinch, Ali whispered into Foreman's ear, "That all you got, George?" Foreman later said that was the moment he knew he was going to lose the match.

In the eighth round, Ali launched a vigorous counterattack against a very tired Foreman, ending with a left hook followed by a hard right, and Foreman went down to the canvas. As he was trying to get his feet under him, the referee ended the fight.

Is this how Trump will fall?

Let's apply this template to Donald Trump. We should note that Trump has always led a magically protected life. However, it is possible that the patina of teflon has been, at long last, all rubbed off. Of course he still has his orange makeup, and it appears he may actually think that adding more orange makeup will compensate for the absence of teflon. In this I believe he is mistaken.

Do you think that Trump has finally figured out that he is going to lose? I think so. But he'll keep fighting until he's knocked to the canvas and the referee ends the match. What will that look like? I don't know, but I hope people are preparing for this outcome. There is a huge and unpredictable downside to letting him continue. That is the bad news.

One final lesson

On a brighter note, Muhammad Ali has given us all a gift. He showed that you could put your career on the line and still win. He won on both fronts. He made his point about the Vietnam war for all to see, and his subsequent boxing career was perhaps no more brilliant than on that unforgettable night, many years ago, in the Congo.

The photograph above is in the public domain and available on Wikimedia Commons. 

See also Fixing the Constitution, There's Got to Be a Better Way, Unleashing the Oligarchs, Somotomo.

The Death of the Smart Missile

Killed by the smart drone

Revolutionary reenactors, Ft. Mifflin, Philadelphia. November 1996.

Trump and Hegseth have given us all a huge present. In their silly war with Iran they have burned up almost all our smart missiles. We're scraping the bottom of the barrel, and refilling the barrel will take years.

I suppose we could call it Accidental Unilateral Disarmament.

And now we need to face facts. We do need to rearm. The question is how.

We have before us an open door to a modern military. This new military will be cheaper, smaller, and easier to update than the rather cumbersome and very expensive military establishment we have had.

Drones are an important part of the way forward, but there is more to it. Fortunately there is a roadmap, kindly provided for us by Ukraine.

Some of the largest corporations in the United States will do everything they can to prevent this change.

President Eisenhower warned us, in his 1961 farewell address, about the military-industrial complex. It's time to listen to him. 

_______

We would also do well to listen to the rest of his address. Here's the last paragraph:

"We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love." 

How far we have strayed from the paths of righteousness.

See also A Lesson from the Berlin Wall, A World in Ruins, Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, The 800-Pound Gorilla in the Oval Office, The Coronvirus Caravan Trundles Along.

Using the Street Well

Malai teaches us some lessons, and not just about ice cream.

Sunday, November 9, 2025, 4:11 pm.

This is not a staged photograph. The people in this picture are not actors, and they are not hitting their marks. They are just ordinary people, going about their lives in a livable city.

So what are we looking at here? This is Malai, an ice cream shop on 18th street, half a block from Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. Its grand opening was on May 17, 2025 (I found the press release). Malai Philadelphia is part of a budding chain (still a small chain) of ice cream shops. The flagship shop is, of course, in Brooklyn (268 Smith Street). And there is another outpost in Washington, D.C. (1407 T Street, NW). 

The spark plug for this engine of commerce is a lady named Pooja Bavishi, who decided to mix the spices of her childhood, such as ginger, rose petals, saffron, and cardamom, into a very creamy ice cream base. She bills the result as "a decadent blend of cream and culture." 

I've long been familiar with the word malai from my many visits to Indian restaurants over the years, but I never knew what the word meant. So I looked it up. Malai is the Hindi word for a type of clotted cream that I am informed is a very popular ingredient in the cuisine of the Indian subcontinent. My favorite flavor of Malai ice cream is mango & cream. My wife is partial to cardamom pistachio and tulsi chocolate chip. 

When I first saw this shop in operation, I thought immediately of a stage set. The people on the street strike me as the audience. The people sitting at the outdoor tables are perhaps in the orchestra pit. And up on the stage we can see through the fourth wall (which in this case is made of glass rather than imagination), and we can see the whole stage, right back to the counter where people get their ice cream. 

I must say the lighting, and the balancing of the different lights, is quite amazing. Everything on the stage is clearly visible from the street, and nobody is getting zapped in the eyes by a klieg light. 

Normal American stores don't look like this. I could give you current examples, but just for fun let's go back a bit in time, to a place called Sprott, Alabama.

Walker Evans took this photo, which is famous in certain circles, in 1935 or 1936. I'm going to skip the rich history (he collaborated with James Agee on a book called Let Us Now Praise Famous Men) and concentrate on what the photograph tells us about retailing back in the old days. 

This is a country store at a crossroads in rural Alabama. It sits behind a road that looks like a strip of desert. The store itself is essentially invisible; it lies behind a porch that is engulfed in deep shade. There are people standing on the porch but most of them are hard to see because they are standing in the shade, avoiding the Alabama sunlight. One man, standing to the right, is in the sun and is wearing a hat. There is a gasoline pump mounted at the outer edge of the porch, and there is the inevitable Coca-Cola sign, which also advises us that we are in the presence of a United States post office.

Inside this carapace there is a refuge from the sun, and indeed from the outer world. I'm going to switch stores here, and show you the interior of a store in Moundville, Alabama.

To begin at the beginning, there is light in this store. The light source is on the left, where there is presumably a window that we cannot see. This is a gentle light that models the various objects in the scene without excessive contrast. In the foreground there are bags of flour; the inevitable Coca-Cola sign is in the upper left. There is a calendar open to July 1936. On a shelf next to a dustpan is another calendar, open to January 1936. There are kerosene lamps of various sizes for sale, and other items on shelves. Dishware is available on what appears to be a table covered by a cloth. Under the table there are boxes of O.K. Soap and what appears to be a washtub. On another table in the left foreground there is a clear spot which I believe is the sales counter. The two horizontal rolls next to the open spot would, if I am correct, be wrapping paper. There is also what appears to be a safe, and next to it some minor trash on the floor - the only thing in this photograph that is not perfect.

This is a place where a farm family in the middle of the Great Depression can go and possibly find some things they can afford that will make their life a little bit better. The refuge is capable of fulfilling its promise. 

The refuge model - a hint of satisfaction awaiting in a safe place, hidden away from the unpredictable life of the street - is still the primary model for retailing today. It looks different, of course. But, until recently, grocery stores and pharmacies in my neighborhood have continued to cover their front windows with large paper sheets announcing the best prices on their goods, sometimes interspersed with large piles of canned goods and other nonperishable items that also block the view to the interior. Recently, I must say, I've noticed one pharmacy and one grocery store that have become more willing to show the interior of their stores to passersby. So perhaps Malai is not alone. But it is definitely in a class by itself. 

I understand the retailer's desire to create an enclosed space, where the retailer controls the entire environment and can seek to induce a trance-like state in the shopper, controlling the available cues and through them influencing the shopper's purchasing behavior.

I do think that Malai has found a better way. The key concept is that shopping and dining are forms of entertainment. Entertainers, like everybody who's selling something, do manipulate their audience. But entertainment is a situation where the audience cooperates voluntarily, usually knows what's going on, and can actually have some influence on the outcome.

I believe that Malai is definitely following the entertainment model. But I think it takes the concept one step further, and this is a step that I have not seen before. Malai has physically and visually integrated the indoors and the outdoors at its shop. I have long thought that such a melding of inside and outside in our cities could yield huge benefits. And now, with Malai, I think I have my proof of concept. 

Saturday, April 4, 2026, 7:30 pm.

See also A Cathedral of Memories, I Think We Need a Mural Here, Fourth Street Surges Forward, Umbrellaville, Lighting Rittenhouse, Night Lights at Coney Island, Paul P. Cret and Rittenhouse Square.

"A Pitiful, Helpless Giant"

Nixon as prophet

Last hurrah for Tricky Dick, August 9, 1974.

On April 30, 1970, President Richard Nixon addressed the American people, telling them that he had decided to invade Cambodia, and that he had to do that because the alternative would be America's losing its position as leader of the free world. Today, as we are currently in the process of actually losing our position of world leadership, I decided to go back to Nixon's speech and see if it had anything to tell us. I think the answer is yes. 

Our basic dilemma is the same now as it was then. Are we an empire or are we a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Here's a useful extract from the speech:

"My fellow Americans, we live in an age of anarchy, both abroad and at home. We see mindless attacks on all the great institutions which have been created by free civilizations in the last 500 years. Even here in the United States, great universities are being systematically destroyed. Small nations all over the world find themselves under attack from within and from without.

"If, when the chips are down, the world's most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.

"It is not our power but our will and character that is being tested tonight. The question all Americans must ask and answer tonight is this: Does the richest and strongest nation in the history of the world have the character to meet a direct challenge by a group which rejects every effort to win a just peace, ignores our warning, tramples on solemn agreements, violates the neutrality of an unarmed people, and uses our prisoners as hostages?

"If we fail to meet this challenge, all other nations will be on notice that despite its overwhelming power the United States, when a real crisis comes, will be found wanting." 

And so we did it Nixon's way. After a while he lost his job, but the war went on until 1975. And we lost.

Nixon seemed particularly annoyed that large parts of the American people were not willing to toe the line. In particular he didn't like what today's fascists call "the enemy within." And he just hated "anarchy," which was one of George Wallace's favorite words. What Wallace and Nixon called anarchy, others might call democracy.

The Students Revolt

The students were a particular target for his dissatisfaction, but the unrest on campuses across the country went to a new level the day after the speech, when a nationwide student anti-war strike erupted, eventually involving an estimated four million protesters. 

Some of these protesters were at Kent State on May 4, where the national guard, in its wisdom, decided to open fire on the students, killing four and wounding nine, one of whom was permanently paralyzed. The dead were all 19 and 20 years old. The fusillade from the defenders of law and order lasted approximately 13 seconds. So, two decades to make a few college students, 13 seconds to snuff them.

Time for an Attitude Adjustment

The thing about the speech that most strikes me is Nixon's absolute certainty that the United States was destined to rule the world, and had an obligation to rise to that challenge.

Now of course, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy have names like Donald Trump and Elon Musk, so our world is a bit different from the world of 1970. And Trump and Musk and the others have turned the United States into "a pitiful, helpless giant."

Is it possible that they have actually done us a favor? It's certainly going to take a lot of work to get past all the damage they have done, but perhaps we can stumble onto a better plan. One where the United States is centered on the welfare of its people, and answers to them, and where instead of trying to control events that have so often proved themselves to be well beyond our control, we instead approach the problems of the world with a bit of humility, and approach our fellow nations seeking genuine partnership among equals. 

Call me a dreamer.

Photo: David Hume Kennerly. 

See also Fixing the Constitution, There's Got to Be a Better Way, Giacomo Matteotti (1885-1924).

Return of the Throwaway Society

I know - it never left, but read this.

My wife and I have been living through another one of those little collapse-of-civilization kerfuffles that seem so common today. This one involves misdirected Amazon packages, and what to do with them. Lois wrote a simply dandy story about this on her Substack, and I suggest you read it right now. Click here. Right now.

Then come back here, because I have a few additional comments.

Okay. 

When I was quite a lot younger, there was something called Earth Day. Actually, it's still around, but there was a time when there was no Earth Day - the first one was in 1970.

Until then, the United States was officially a throwaway society. Over the years, the idea of caring about our trash has made considerable progress. For instance, used hypodermic needles and other medical waste no longer wash up on New Jersey beaches. Wait - that's a categorical statement. Let me rephrase: I haven't seen a used hypodermic needle wash up on a New Jersey beach in years.

Today, everybody seems to pay at least lip service to the idea of preserving the planet. What they actually do is often something else. Many companies still seem to quietly view trash as an "externality" - an economist's polite way of saying "I don't care."

Mr. Bezos and his Amazonians seem to think it's okay to leave packages on your doorstep - this is called "delivery," and they even take pictures with their phones to prove they've "delivered." Then the porch pirates come. And nobody in a position to do anything about this mess cares. 

And then it turns out that misdirected packages are also just another part of the trash stream. 

We are headed in the wrong direction. 

See also Scavengers and Scow Trimmers; In Defense of Disgusting Alleys; Art Meets Sewage; Somotomo; The Gowanus Transforms, Again; What Does a Clean Street Look Like?

Hollow Man Still Standing

I think there is a level on which Donald Trump knows he is falling apart. But what would that look like?What would he be thinking? I've been wondering about this for a while, and then recently I was reading a remarkable new novel about a wealthy, aristocratic Hungarian family in the first half of the twentieth century, a time, shall we say, of considerable stress and uncertainty - or shall we just say chaos. At any rate, the baron who heads the family, a fairly young man with teenage children, starts to feel he's simply falling apart under the pressure. Here's what the author thinks that looks like: 

"The baron was like a madman who realises his mind is slipping away but can do nothing about it. He sensed himself falling to pieces inside and checked his most routine actions for signs of neglect. 

"If, for example, he realised that he had uttered a word with insufficient clarity because his tongue was too lethargic, the next time he took particular care to articulate this word cleanly, only to stumble over another. If he was lost in thought, he often forgot things, such as replacing the cap on the fountain pen. The more he resisted his decline, the faster it appeared to proceed. For this reason the ignorance of others was the only thing still keeping him together. While this continued, his decline remained something that could be hidden and hushed up." 

- Nelio Biedermann, Lazar p. 166. This book was published in German in 2025, and the English translation came out in early 2026. 

As an aside, some time ago I read Joseph Roth's The Radetzky March, and just recently I read Antal Szerb's Journey by Moonlight. Both of these books are literary landmarks, and each of them deepened, in its own way, my understanding of the former Austro-Hungarian empire. But if I had time to read only one book, it would be Biedermann's Lazar.

See also The Man Who Would Be King, The Democrats Need to Fight the War, Deja Vu All Over Again, The 800-Pound Gorilla in the Oval Office, What Can Pierre Laval Tell Us About Donald Trump?