"The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution" is Mariano Azuela's fictional account of the Mexican Revolution. It is the story of Demetrio Macias, a peasant who joins forces with the revolutionaries to help overthrow the corrupt dictator, Porfirio Diaz. In Azuela's depiction of Demetrio Macias, he captures the spirit of the Mexican people and his telling of this conflict between the rebels and the federales helped to establish him as one of Mexico's preeminent novelists.