Here are two reasons why I think we should invest time, money and resources in History – aside from “learning from the past can, sometimes, help us improve our chances of survival and happiness in the present and future.”
1. It’s exciting and fun. Maybe not for you. Certainly not for all people, but for some. The great intellectual project is to understand Nature and the Human Condition in many dimensions: via the microscopic, the psychological, the mythic, the simulation (e.g. fiction), the biological, the physical, and the historical. You may or may not agree that “it’s exciting and fun” is a valid reason. Which is why I brought up values at the beginning of my answer.
2. We are hopeless at predicting where useful knowledge will come from. For instance, when people invented looms, they had no idea they would lead to ideas necessary for computers; when chemists were inventing dyes, they had no idea it would lead them to the discovery of antibiotics; tons of scientists (maybe including the one who will one day cure your cancer) have admitted they went into their fields because, as kids, the were “Star Trek” fans. Great ideas don’t come from a plan. They come from happenstance that springs up when experts follow their passions.
The only other criterion would be passion. Passionate scientists, artists, race-car drivers, X-Boxers, playwrights, basketball players, fashion designers, dentists, puppeteers, and historians could put their names in the jar, and each would be equally likely to win research funds.I trust randomness more than human planning to ferret out of “what’s useful,” as long as randomness is coupled with passion. Which is where History comes in. For whatever reason, it’s a field many people are passionate about. That in itself makes it worthy as far as I’m concerned. And we might as well trust randomness. It will wind up controlling the outcome, whether we want it to or not.