My standard recommendation is for William T. Rowe's China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), which covers the dynasty both chronologically and thematically in about 200 pages. Rowe covers a lot of the historiography around various aspects as well as just the events, so it's a good primer before diving deeper. However, Rowe does focus mainly on the Chinese side of things. Peter Perdue's China Marches West (2005), which is by comparison is rather a behemoth at over 560 pages, nevertheless is, I would say, essential reading as well, as it covers the Inner Asian and global dynamics of the Qing up to about 1800, something Rowe just doesn't have the space to get into.

In addition to Rowe's book, I have been highly enjoying Richard J. Smith's *China's Cultural Heritage (*1994), which focuses primarily on the Qing while reading backward into deeper currents in traditional China. His more recent The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture (2015) revisits and expands upon China's Culture Heritage. Personally, I am getting more out of Smith's book(s) than I did Rowe's, but both are superb. Smith's approach tends toward a more thematic organization, but the opening and and closing chapters provide a nice chronological overview of the era.