Alan Brinkley is an American historian who has taught for over 20 years at Columbia University. He is currently the Allan Nevins Professor of History. In 2003-2009 he was University Provost... (wikipedia)
For at least the past 65 years, liberalism has been nothing if not an attempt to strike a balance between the needs of the community and the needs of individuals, between the need for freedom and the need for order.
Given the huge engineering and other challenges, much of the reconstruction would have to be done by private companies ... there is no government capacity for doing such things.
Compression is a tremendous challenge. Five paragraphs on a topic is a lot for all but the most important issues.
It should not be in the book for titillating purposes or settling scores. It should be in the book because of its significance to our recent history.