ABSTRACT
In the second half of the eighteenth century, processes of reform took place almost simultaneously throughout Europe. Ottoman statesmen were aware of these changes and worked out their own version of what they called the ‘New Order’ (Nizam-ı Cedid). Especially the military and governmental reforms under Selim III, as well as the languages connected to them were the Ottoman version of processes that were taking place in other European states as well. They are thus shedding light on the transcultural dimension of late eighteenth-century reforms. This chapter engages both with the Ottoman reform discourse and the European discourse on Ottoman reforms (or on the absence of reform). It does so through the bias of one of the first texts by an Ottoman author ever composed in French. The text was meant to engage with European public opinion, challenging the predominant view of the Ottoman Empire as a backward and ‘unreformable’ state.
