The Rebel is an essay on artistic, historical, and metaphysical rebellion, in which he lays out the difference between revolution and revolt.
Camus sees revolt as a peaceful, evolutionary process that requires leadership but not violence. He criticizes Hegel's work, accusing it of glorifying power and the state over social morality and ethics, and he accuses Marx of co-opting Hegelian philosophy to allow "any means to an end". Camus prefers Mediterranean humanism, a philosophy grounded in nature and moderation, to the violence and historicism he sees as part and parcel to what he calls the "Absolutist" philosophies. The attacks on Hegel, Marxism and nihilism in The Rebel had a profound effect on Camus' peers.
The book was described as intellectual treason by leftist critics, and a review by Francis Jeanson in Les Temps Modernes accused Camus of being a traitor to the left. After Camus attempted to defend himself in a letter to the publication, Jean-Paul Sartre, the editor of Les Temps Modernes at the time, published an open letter in response that tallied 19 pages. The letter included personal attacks, and marked the end of the two philosophers' friendship.

加缪在他的小说、戏剧、随笔和论著中深刻地揭示出人在异己的世界中的孤独、个人与自身的日益异化，以及罪恶和死亡的不可避免，但他在揭示出世界的荒诞的同时却并不绝望和颓丧，他主张要在荒诞中奋起反抗，在绝望中坚持真理和正义，他为世人指出了一条基督教和马克思主义以外的自由人道主义道路。他直面惨淡人生的勇气，他“知其不可而为之”的大无畏精神使他在第二次世界大战之后不仅在法国，而且在欧洲并最终在全世界成为他那一代人的代言人和下一代人的精神导师。

死刑之存废，一直是死刑议题中的核心话题。在本书中，加缪运用大量与死刑相关的历史、社会、政治、文化等方面的知识，论证了废除死刑的理由。本书因此成为关于死刑存废问题的经典之作，也是加缪最具影响力的非小说类作品之一。
本书是作者对死刑的深入探讨，阐明死刑不是有效抑制犯罪的方法，并且比传统社会的以牙还牙还要残酷野蛮，因此，作者坚决地反对死刑，本书也成为反对死刑的经典之作。 死刑之存废在当今世界是一个意见非常对立的争议。在这个命题真正进入理性辩论时，加缪的这本书，可以对于尚未形成意见的读者提供一种思索的角度，甚至对于支持或反对废除死刑的人，也可以做为检视自己意见是否足够深思熟虑的参照。毕竟,认识死刑、思索死刑之后，我们才能真正地支持或反对死刑。