Adam Curtis argues that the politics of fear now driving American and British government rests on a myth: that a unified, hierarchical terror network called al-Qaeda is poised to strike at any moment. Across three episodes, he traces two very different men who shaped the ideas behind that myth, American academic Leo Strauss, who believed societies needed unifying myths to bind them together, and Egyptian civil servant Sayyid Qutb, whose revulsion at American individualism helped found modern Islamist radicalism. Archival footage and interviews follow both movements from the 1950s onward, showing neoconservatives adopting Strauss's ideas in Washington while Qutb's followers built networks across the Middle East. Curtis's real target is the War on Terror itself, which he presents as a case built on exaggerated intelligence and a loosely connected set of individuals rather than the organized enemy politicians described. Dense narration and archive material carry the argument, building toward Curtis's claim that fear has replaced ideology as the thing governments use to hold societies together.