I haven't read a lot of books in this vein so I feel like my take here isn't very useful but it seemed a lot more like a semi-genealogy of what might have happened in Madagascar, maybe, than a book about an enlightenment experiment there. Lots and lots of "maybe"s because of a lack of strong sources, which ok, but those maybes also didn't seem to talk a ton about social structures and principles. Even the conclusion, which I hoped would wrap it up nicely, was like … very wishy-washy. The concept of the book is great I just didn't get a ton of info from it.