Research Paper on:
Post 1500 Global Cultural Similarities and Differences

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
In The Agony and the Ecstasy, author Irving Stone sought to present the cultural, social and religious taboos that Michelangelo knew he must transgress in order to bring  his art to the level that could satisfy him. He could not realistically reproduce the outward appearance of the internal muscle without discovering the underlying structure of that muscle.  Similarly, Sir Isaac Newton later established what ultimately would come to be known as the scientific method of investigation, the basis of which continues to be standard in all  types of empirical research today. These two individuals were visionary in their discoveries and in their applications of those discoveries. To a  great degree, they represent the divergent path that Western culture took at the dawn of the Renaissance. There was a thirst for knowledge and an intense need to find  answers to age-old questions. That view was not shared in other parts of the world, however, and particularly not by those that we refer to today as Eastern.  Focus of the View The West Those initial questions of the Renaissance opened a Pandoras box  of hundreds and thousands of others. Michelangelos determination to portray the human form in the most realistic manner possible was not only the product of rantings of a disturbed  artist. His efforts coincided with the emergence of the city-state in Italy and with the emergent recognition that there were other ways of viewing the world besides those that  had been practiced until that time.1 One of the hallmark features of the Renaissance was the ability to question concepts and institutions that