"The narrative of frank racism, a word Mr. Herring employs frequently, gains momentum in a discussion of Manifest Destiny, which he says had more to do with an ideology of racial superiority than with altruism. The examples, in 19th-century dealings with continental neighbors like Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua, are as painful as they are numerous. A persistent target was Mexico, which lost huge chunks of its territory to American expansionism. “Americans scorned Mexicans as a mixed breed, even below free blacks and Indians, ‘an imbecile and pusillanimous race,’ ” Mr. Herring writes. He adds a few pages later, “The very racism that drove the United States into Mexico limited its conquests.”"