I disagree with the arguments as well - it doesn't write off history, though, just a narrow brand of prescriptive history: the value has rarely been in the cont

I disagree with the arguments as well - it doesn't write off history, though, just a narrow brand of prescriptive history: the value has rarely been in the content (like it is for nearly every other sufficiently abstract subject), it's been in the doing: considering sources, reacting to lines of argument made throughout history in their own contexts, knitting overarching themes together to come to a single, tortured conclusion; inevitably in some journal that's been locked up on JSTOR. It lends itself to the practice of arguing far better than any of the rest of the humanities does by asking you consider all the moving parts explicitly. So I suppose there's a parallel - it's got as much value as sufficiently high-level mathematics.