The Rebel (1951) is Camus's 'attempt to understand the time I live in' and a
brilliant essay on the nature of human revolt. Here he makes a daring critique
of communism – how it had gone wrong behind the Iron Curtain and the resulting
totalitarian regimes. And he questions two events held sacred by the left wing –
the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917 – that had
resulted, he believed, in the use of terrorism as a political instrument.
In this towering intellectual document, Camus argues that hope for the future
lies in revolt with revolution – a chance to achieve