Books: Yankee from Quincy

JOHN ADAMS AND THE PROPHETS OF PROGRESS (362 pp.]—Zoltan Haraszti—Harvard University Press ($5).

Few U.S. Presidents have left office in such a huff as to miss the inaugurations of their successors. Crusty John Adams did it* when Thomas Jefferson defeated him for re-election in 1800. He left the capital at dawn of Inauguration Day, and by March 17, 1801, after a 14-day journey, he was back on his Quincy, Mass. farm. He even congratulated himself, Yankee-fashion, on a shrewd swap, having made, he felt, "a good exchange ... of honors and virtues for manure."...