As a history professor, it's good to see such a civil and thoughtful discussion of the value of the humanities on HN. Thanks :)
For what it's worth, I enjoyed Prof. Rota's piece and didn't particularly object to his "what"/"how" distinction. I agree with commenters above that it's a misrepresentation of historical research, which can be deeply empirical. Unfortunately a huge amount of history education, especially k-12, does boil down to a rote memorization of past events, so I can't really fault him for the generalization.
For what it's worth, I enjoyed Prof. Rota's piece and didn't particularly object to his "what"/"how" distinction. I agree with commenters above that it's a misrepresentation of historical research, which can be deeply empirical. Unfortunately a huge amount of history education, especially k-12, does boil down to a rote memorization of past events, so I can't really fault him for the generalization.