Originally Posted by
Walter Ego
I'm currently listening to the audiobook of Russell's History of Western Philosophy which you might find worth reading. (I read the text version many years ago. Interesting, also that Russell, a philosopher, is quoted so often by skeptics.)
You simply cannot understand world history or religion or science without knowing the philosophical currents of whatever era you are studying. Your dismissal of "philosophy" (which seems to be based on your dislike of academic philosophy professors and students) is not only ahistorical, it is anti-intellectual.
Just a casual: you need to be very sure you know, in addition, the philosophical beliefs/foundation of the person(s) witing or teaching that history. Historians often cannot seperate their philosophy from that of the people of a particular location in time and space.