I'm sorry, but that still doesn't make sense to me. All the disciplines of the humanities are tools that are utilized across the fields of study. Specialists like to focus on one branch as opposed to another, but nothing exists within a vacuum. Philosophy requires the study of History to understand the context of the modalities of human thought within a given time, and History uses Philosophy to understand the evolution and changes taking place. That's why even I had to exposed to Simone De Beauvoir, Kant, etc., while philosophy students I know had to be exposed to Daniel Boorstin, Alexander de Tocqueville (historiographers of note) in their studies.
None of these branches are more important than the other, nor are any of them any less subject to distortions and opinions that are the core of the very diversity that is humanity. Those philosophers I named read and digested the historically significant philosophers of their past and would read and argue vigorously with their intellectual contemporaries. Their thoughts didn't appear in a vacuum, and the social, economic and political events eddying about them contributed greatly to their discoveries. Try writing philosophical tracts without knowing what came before, or what's going on around you right now, and, unless you happen to be a savant of some kind, your words and thoughts will most likely seem derivative and primitive.
I'm not trying to change your opinion of history -- whether you like the field or not --, but rather to state how there is no way of extricating these disciplines, whether it be history, literature or philosophy, from each other without missing out on for that which the humanities stand...the understanding of ourselves. As for tools for life, history provides the background to make educated decisions on such simple acts as voting, and to communicate with the cultures of the global community. Perhaps things would be different if more of the voting public understood the historic difficulties that entail occupying a foreign land...maybe if they received a greater education in the various interpretations of those events, things possibly could have been different on the world stage now. Thus, will I end my part of this discussion, not to say it isn't cool discussing these things with you, Roach.