An Evening with Dr Harry Hobbs

Dr Harry Hobbs is at Waterstones on Monday 9 November, where he'll be talking about his new book, Outlawed: Responding to the Global Rise of Sovereign Citizens and Legal Conspiracies, which he co-authored with Stephen Young. The evening is part of Waterstones' 'An Evening with...' series, and Hobbs will be in conversation with Melissa Demian.

Outlawed turns in on 'pseudolaw', a fast-growing movement built on conspiracy theories, quasi-legal rituals and the promise that ordinary people can outsmart governments. It's the kind of thing that sounds like a niche legal curiosity until you see it in action. The book takes you inside a world of courtroom confrontations, YouTube gurus and viral traffic stops, tracing the movement from its 19th-century origins to deadly shootings, attempted coups and some truly bizarre court cases involving doppelgangers, secret trusts and accusations of treason and sorcery. It's a long way from a simple misunderstanding over a parking ticket.

Hobbs and Young argue that defeating pseudolaw requires confronting the social, economic and legal failures that make it so seductive in the first place. The book doesn't just describe the movement; it asks why it's taking hold and what it says about the way people are relating to the law and the state. If you've spent any time on the weirder corners of the internet, you've probably come across the sort of rhetoric they're talking about—the sovereign citizen claims, the 'secret' legal loopholes, the conviction that the whole system is a fraud—and this is a chance to hear it unpacked by someone who's spent a lot of time looking into it.

It's a conversation rather than a lecture, so there's room for questions. The session runs from 19:00 to 20:00 at Waterstones, 128 Princes Street, EH2 4AD. Tickets are £5 for general admission, or £18 if you want the book included.