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There was a time a few years ago when I read a lot of Camus, there was a big binge on him in fact, as I was deeply interested in his work, both fiction and non-fiction. But that interest slowly started to wear down and he was eventually nudged aside, because, dare I say it, I'd had enough of him. Not because he wasn't a brilliant writer, of course he was, but because I simply read too much of him. Well, I really should have read this back then, when his books really fascinated me more. Camus here explores the act of rebellion through the history of metaphysical and political revolt. He looks at the concepts of the Marquis de Sade, Baudelaire,Dostolevsky, Nietzsche, Marx, Hegel to name a few. He conceives of revolt as an essentially positive act, at once against and for something. Man's hope lies in the rebel who revolts in the name of moderation and life, who joins through his act in the common fate, who tempers his revolt with a restraint that leads away from the vicious circling to successive dictatorships. This exploration into nihilism and rebellion in which Camus is full of ideas to point out new, stimulating areas of thought will be appreciated by the intellectual type and those studying philosophy. Camus's essays and non-fiction though aren't really aimed at the casual reader. The Rebel, although well written and though thought-provoking, didn't stimulate me, philosophically speaking, as much as what I'd hoped it would. I though the big break of not reading him would have made him feel fresh, like when I first read him, but it didn't. I've moved on, in literary terms anyway. It's a 3/5 for me.