I'm sorry to hear that. Are you planning to buy your books on the outside or use the library system?

For the Civil War, I would start with either (or both) James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom and Shelby Foote's The Civil War. Those are two mainstays that you should be able to find relatively easily. If either of those piques your interest, I can make further recommendations based on what you're interested in. Battles and campaigns? Politics and diplomacy? Economics and organization?

In any case, feel free to PM me if you'd like to discuss it more.

More recent history and so interesting - I recommend "Under the Banner of Heaven" by John Krackhauer. True crime story plus the history of Mormon polygamy, which is so compelling on its own. I hope this isn't an inappropriate recommendation, but it's one of my favorite nonfiction books.

The Silk Roads byPeter Frankopan.

It is a history of how trade and the worlds centre of commerce has changed through history. It covers from well before Christ all the way to the modern day. It covers how wars and political events changed economies and ultimately how we in the west became so powerful so quickly.

It may sound dry but it is an excellent read.

I can help with the Roman Empire ones, and I see in a comment you said that you're interested in the Middle Ages too.

So for the Early Roman Empire, I'd recommend Robin Lane Fox's "The Classical World". For the Later Roman Empire, I'd recommend Terry Jones' "Barbarians", which is a bit biased but very readable.

For the Early Middle Ages, I'd recommend Robin Fleming's recent "Britain after Rome" and Michael Wood's "In Search of the Dark Ages" which was a great documentary series which was then adapted into a book. I was quite surprised when my professor asked me if I'd read it during my interview, but it really is very respected. I'd also recommend Chris Wickham's "Framing the Middle Ages", or if you can't get hold of that cheaply then "Inheritance of Rome" is pretty great too. For the Late Middle Ages, I'd recommend Thomas Asbridge's "The First Crusade" as well as the ones that u/Rittermeister has already said.

Also, don't shy away from things written in ancient and medieval times! A very short list of interesting ones would be: Xenophon's The Persian Expedition, Herodotus' The Histories, Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars, Procopius' The Secret History, Asser's Life of Alfred, Einhardt's Life of Charlemagne and Anna Comnena's The Alexiad. Marcus Aurelius' Meditations might be of interest too, but it's written by an emperor rather than about an emperor.

Some other random interesting things that come to mind are: Neil Macgregor's "A history of the world in 100 objects", Orlando Figes' "A People's Tragedy" and (as mentioned in other comments) the very recent "Napoleon the Great" by Andrew Roberts and "The Silk Roads" by Peter Frankopan are standout modern popular history books.

I really wish you all the best.

You might like Erik Larson's book about the Lusitania, Dead Wake, or Thunderstruck, which is about the development of wireless communication and how it was used in a murder investigation.

Some of my favorites in rough chronological order.

Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World

Casper Olusoga, David Erichsen, The Kaiser's Holocaust: Germany's Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism

Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost

Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought

Robert K. Massie, Castles of Steel

Alistair Horne, The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916

Mark Thompson, The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919

David Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy

David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East

Margaret Macmillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World

Sean McMeekin, The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World Power

Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy

Gotz Aly, Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State

Nikolaus Wachsmann, KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps

Christian Ingrao, The SS Dirlewanger Brigade: The History of the Black Hunters

John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline & Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-45

I also highly recommend Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, DeQuincey's The Caesars and Prescott's Conquest of Mexico and Conquest of Peru, because although there's better history I don't think there's better writing.

I will recommend a WW2 one, that might be somewhat different then the usual WW2 stuff:

• The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy

It looks at a lot of the same question we always ask on the Nazis and gives interesting answers.

There are of course a lot of WW1 books, but you can't go wrong with

• The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914

I will give quite extensive background on all the political, social, cultural movements in all countries going further back then books of its type. That was welcome because most people (me included) grow less informed walking backwards from WW1.

Not a history so much as a journalist's thoughts on the area he covered throughout his life, but Robert Fisk's The Great War for Civilization is great!

Berlin 1961 is also a wonderful read.

With WWI you can start with Norman Stone's A Short History to give you a quick overall knowledge and use it a basis to delve a little deaper into the areas you are interested in. I know you're not asking for fiction but the best WWI fiction I've read is Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks.

For the Ancient Rome get SPQR by Mary Beard.

I can't recommend anything about the civil war (I assume you mean the US) but if you're interested in earlier American history, get American Colonies by Alan Taylor which is exceptional. I also recommend the American West by Dee Brown for a general history of how the west developed thorughout the second half of the 19th century. Its an extraordinary book.

If you're into British history at all I can give you some more recommendations.