A lot is involved here....I disagree with most of it but I do regonize some insights and arguements in it. Let's just bring forth one thing for this time:
You seem to argue that History exists but 历史学 which is a discpline of the study of History cannot exist independently enough. I agree to that. Years back I told a friend that only an economy exists not an economics (and he agreed). But we shouldn't carry this argument too far. This is because, obviously, the study of history is still meaningful, it is just not sufficient to be a seperate discpline. You claim that this "study" is driven by some sort of "ultimate anxiety" about "where we came from", then following some standard argument of Materialism ( I am assuming this is the English term for 唯物主义 though it doesn't sound that right. Someone should correct me if this isn't the right word), you arrive at the conclusion that any meaning from this type of "study" is false, or arbitary. If this is the case , you just fall into the same trap as the author of "A Brief History of Humankind" did -- some kind of false enlightenment as pointed out by Xiu3 Zhi1 Yuan3 (the fellow who interviewed him).
"False enlightenemnt", this is how it works as I see it: You first single out a particular thread or theme from some reality, put it in some novel perspective, then develope some argument in pretending that this thread or theme expalins the whole of that reality throughly. For instance, he argues that currency is "all human history is about" ( I didn't read his book, but learnt about it from others' reviews, comments and quotes). The problem is, by the same tokens, I can as well argue, say, "language is all human history is about", or "medicine is all human history is about", or "food is all human histry is about".... The trick here is, currency, language, medicine or food do permeate the whole of human history therefore they do appear explaining the whole of it, but this is only a illusion. We all know that language or food don't explain all history.
Same with an argument of materialism, only here "materials" is in the place of currency, food, or language. Material is more general than any specific items, hence that feeling of enlightenment come with it is more convincing. But it is still 假药 as suggested by a comment above. Therefore if a materialistic explanation of history satisfies you, it is because material is all you see. As a proverb states: If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything resembles a nail.
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