" But Dickstein, a Democrat from New York City who served in the House of Representatives from the early 1920s to the mid-1940s, conducted himself in public life with none of the refined elegance that his self-presentation suggested. At a time when Joseph McCarthy was still an unknown lawyer in Wisconsin, Dickstein invented the modern practice of naming names—broadcasting the identities of suspected subversives without the slightest pretense of due process. If anyone can be credited (or blamed) with introducing the phrase “un-American activities” into the nation’s lexicon, it is he. An unusually shameless publicity hound in a legislative body...