I want to be a foreign service officer when I graduate next spring. To be an officer you need to have a comprehensive knowledge of modern (past 700 years or so) history and politics. So to do this I'm going to read a lot this summer and throughout next year. I like to read and I've taken history courses so I'm not starting from scratch.
Here is a reading list that they provide (https://careers.state.gov/uploads/ff/03/ff03e644688fe25f74ff3b0641c59e9d/Updated_FSOT_Reading_List_Aug2013.pdf)
Can you offer any more suggestions? I read Guns, Germs and Steel in high school which was interesting. In addition, how should I go about this daunting task of learning so much history?What order should I move through these books?
Well that reading list is....extensive. Honestly just start from there and read all those works. If that is the reading list they gave you that means whatever testing they give you will be centered around those works. I'd honestly go through every single one of those (or most) before you even consider expanding around.
Some general histories I have read though are Peter Wilson's The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy, Ben Kiernan's Blood and Soil: A History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darful, Christopher Clarke's Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947, John Keegan's The First World War (for a very general overview), The Wars of Louis XIV 1667-1714 by John Lynn, The Rise of the Great Powers 1648-1815 by Derek McKay et. al, and The Great Powers and the European States System, 1815-1914 by Roy Bridge.