Source Evaluations

Anonymous. "A SENSIBLE APPROACH TO ISLAM. " The Humanist 68.1 (2008): 20-23. Research Library Core, ProQuest. Web. 20 Jul. 2010.

This is a brief article condemning the stereotyping of Muslims as terrorists, when it is only a small percentage that are actually committing the terrorist acts. The article gives sort of a checklist to identify Islamic extremists and their use of theocracy. Essentially, it is a statement being made by The American Humanist Association on their views of Islamic extremists, theocracy, and that they endorse religious freedom and condemn the fear and anger used against Muslims.

Overall, the article’s main intent does not contribute significantly to my paper. I am really only using it because it contains a list of theocratic attributes of Islam that help to compare Islam to Gilead. I think the comparison makes Gilead that much more believable, and by virtue of that it also makes Islam scarier.


Pleuger, Gilbert. "Totalitarianism." new perspective 9.1 n. pag. Web. 23 Jul 2010.
http://www.history-ontheweb.co.uk/concepts/totalitarianism.htm.

This article defines the characteristics that make up a totalitarian government. It then uses those characteristics to compare totalitarianism to fascism and the Third Reich. Pleuger than talks a little about democracy and the potential for a democracy to unfold into a totalitarian government because of some similarities.

Gilbert Pleuger is the author of The Good History Student’s Handbook, and holds an honors degree in History from Keele. The web site is a British web site that seems to be devoted to history and e-learning. I don’t see a date on the article anywhere, but it is not necessarily time critical material. There is no supporting evidence or citations, which is problematic for the information containing historical references. However, a case could probably be made for it being public knowledge. Overall, for the purposes I would use this article, I would say that it has enough credibility to suit me.