The Rebel (French: L'Homme révolté) is a 1951 book-length essay by Albert Camus, which treats both the metaphysical and the historical development of rebellion and revolution in societies, especially Western Europe.

In the inborn impulse to rebel, on the other hand, we can deduce values that enable us to determine that murder and oppression are illegitimate and conclude with "hope for a new creation."

He grounds this politics in a wider "midday thought" which opposes love of this life, and an unrelativisable normative commitment to fellow human beings, against ideological promises of the other world, end of history, or triumph of an alleged master race.

The Encyclopædia Britannica Online summarised Camus views on rebellion: The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains that "the notion of Revolt refers to both a path of resolved action and a state of mind.

It can take extreme forms such as terrorism or a reckless and unrestrained egoism (both of which are rejected by Camus), but basically, and in simple terms, it consists of an attitude of heroic defiance or resistance to whatever oppresses human beings.

Henri Peyre, writing for the Encyclopædia Britannica Online, considers the text to "consist of grave, but inconsistent and often unconvincing, essays loosely linked together.

[5] According to David Simpson, writing for the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, it is "a reflection on the nature of freedom and rebellion and a philosophical critique of revolutionary violence."

[8] George F Selfer has analysed parallels between Camus and Friedrich Nietzsche in philosophical aesthetics and found significant similarities and profound differences.