Saw Weinstein speak two yrs. ago at Modern Times. Looked well.
Only a dozen attended alas. The month before 5 times that many came to see Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground.As Heinz Eulau, a political scientist said to Irving Howe, "Social democracy is boring."
Well worth reading is his last book on the history (and future?) of the US Left and digging up, "For A New America: Essays from Studies on the Left, 1959-1967, " edited by Weinstein & David Eakins. Classics by Harold Cruse on Black Nationalism, Martin Sklar on corporate liberalism, and the irony of the Wisconsin CPUSA supporting Joseph McCarthy vs. anti-Communist progressive LaFollette for US Senate.
Doug Ireland extensive rememberence of Weinstein, http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/06/james_weinstein.html