If anyone wants a little optional background reading on Nietzsche, I came across David D. Roberts’s book, Nothing But History: Reconstruction and Extremity after Metaphysics (Berkeley, 1995), in which Chapter 4 is about Nietzsche’s views on history. Fortunately you can actually read the whole book online. It looks interesting on other topics too and may be worth looking over in general.
http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft3q2nb26r&brand=eschol
Also on Walter Benjamin, I found this:
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/106.5/ah0501001721.html
Daniel
