37 A Business alla Turca? Levantine Trade and the Representation of Ottoman Merchants in Eighteenth-Century European Commercial Literature Mathieu Grenet* his essay investigates the role business patterns played in the perception European traders had of their Ottoman counterparts in eighteenth-century Levantine trade, particularly the commercial traic in the Eastern Mediterranean between the Ottoman Empire and Western European powers (mainly France, England, the Netherlands and the Italian states). It is based on a close reading of a wide portion of the commercial literature available at this time (with special reference to French texts), including business treatises and handbooks, as well as memoirs and correspondences of traders. 1 What emerges from these readings is a picture composed on the one hand of the classical image of the Levantine trader, whose features epitomize the speciicity of Ottoman business practices and the permanence of European orientalism, and, on the other, of a fragmented and subtle perception that derives from practical experiences of traders with the Ottoman Empire and its subjects. he basic assumption of this essay is that far from being opposed, these representations are two faces of the same coin, making the image of the eighteenth-century Ottoman trader both stereotypical and multifaceted. Following a brief overview of Levantine trade, consisting of a critical review of the main arguments in the abundant literature on the topic, this essay will explore how discourses on Ottoman otherness took into account a certain