Map 23.2 Two Faces of an “American Empire” Those who argue that the United States constructed an empire in the second half of the twentieth century point both to its political/military alliances and interventions around the world and to U.S. economic and cultural penetration of many countries. The distribution of U.S. military bases, a partial indication of its open and covert interventions, and the location of McDonald’s restaurants indicate something of the scope of America’s global presence in the early twenty-