Few books grab the reader by the throat and demand to be read, but Jared Diamond has made an impressive contribution to that short list with Collapse. Following on from his global history Guns, Germs and Steel he takes a new dramatic pitch with this bruising examination of the ecological problems facing planet Earth.

His theme is how societies fail, and from his opening shock comparison of two apparently well-functioning cattle farms in different parts of the world, he identifies and refines evidence for societal collapse by looking at the difficulties faced (and caused) by civilisations such as Norse Greenland, the lost civilisation of the Mayans, and present-day Rwanda, China and Australia.

Diamond begins in his own backyard, at Bitterroot Valley in south-western Montana, with a look at the wounds inflicted on the region over more than a century by mining, logging and short-sighted farming practices.

These, he concludes would have been quite sufficient to have utterly destroyed a comparable environment in a less affluent country, although more serious problems are being now being faced in other parts of the U.S.

In Rwanda the author looks behind the horrors of the recent genocide to seek its causes. He finds a spiralling population trying to ward off starvation by coaxing two and three crops a year from exhausted soil … and ultimately resorting to deep-rooted tribal enmities to explain its ill fortune.

The subsequent battle for survival resulted in 1 million dead.

Diamond makes no secret of his love for Australia but warns that Australians are using their renewable resources "faster than their renewal rates, with the result that they are declining".

Australia's ancient soil too, is badly depleted, he reminds us, partly because it has been spared the extreme geological upheavals, such as volcanic eruptions and periodic glaciations, which affect other continents. But our farming practices have meant that "nutrients in arable soils with the onset of European agriculture quickly became exhausted".

So, we're in a mess, but the battle isn't over yet, and to help the fight Diamond concludes by providing a list of a dozen sets of ecological problems that need to be addressed urgently. He also confronts and defeats some of the more widespread and insidious misconceptions about how we're treating our planet. The section of suggested further reading stretches to 32 pages.

Collapse makes challenging and frequently depressing reading but should win a place in our libraries, bookshelves and hearts for sheer vitality and passion. It's a clear and compelling call to arms.