Mathematics without history is soulless

On this I beg to differ. Or at least, you are making a sweeping generalisation. Not everyone thinks and feels as you do.

For me, being given "historical context" and having to understand where these things came from, or why they were interesting, or how they were developed, or who did them, was tedious agony, and I hated it with a passion that's hard to describe.

I understand that for some people it brings mathematics to life, for others, like me, it kills it. Please don't think everyone is like you.