From McGill-Queen's University Press Fall 2008 Catalogue:  Current dogma holds that all cultures and moral values are conditional, nothing human is innate, and Einstein proved that the whole universe is “relative.” Challenging this position, William Gairdner argues that relativism is not only logically and morally self-defeating but that progress in scientific and intellectual disciplines has actually strengthened the case for absolutes, universals, and constants of nature and human nature. 
Gairdner refutes the popular belief in cultural relativism by showing that there are hundreds of well-established cross-cultural “human universals.” He then discusses the many universals found in physics – including Einstein’s personal regret at how his work was misinterpreted by publics eager to promote relativism. Gairdner also gives a lively account of the many universals of human biology, including the controversial topic of universal gender differences, or “brain sex.” He then looks at universal concepts of both natural and international law, and ends by discussing language theory. He shows how philosophers from Nietzsche to Derrida have misused linguistic concepts to justify their relativism, even though a sustained and successful effort by serious scientists and philosophers of language has revealed myriad universals of human language, ranging from language acquisition, to word-order, to “Universal Grammar.”

From ethics to Einstein, culture to biology, law to language, The Book of Absolutes makes complex topics accessible to a broad audience and demonstrates that there are plenty of certainties, even in our postmodern world.

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1	A Brief History of Relativism
2	The Main Types of Relativism
3	Objections to Relativism
4	The Universals of Human Life and Culture
5	The Constants of Nature
6	The War over Biology: Setting the Stage
7	Hardwired: The Universals of Human Biology, Sex, and Brain Sex
8	Universals of Law: The Natural Law and the Moral Law
9	The Natural Law and the Moral Law at Work in the World
10	How Language Theory Changed the (Post) Modern World
11	German Philosophy and the Relativist Revolt against Western Civilization
12	The Sacred Text: The French Nietzsche and the French Heidegger
13	Po-Mo and the Return to Absolutes
14	The Universals of Language
15	A Postscript, with a Word about the Universals of Literature, Myth, and Symbol
Appendix: Some Universals and Constants of Nature and Human Nature

Publisher's Review:  For more than two decades, William D. Gairdner has been a major voice from the conservative resistance, primarily through his bestselling books The Trouble with Canada, The War Against the Family, and The Trouble with Democracy. Now, in this new book, his passionate, probing, and provocative intellect is hard at work, ranging over hot button issues of the day in the spheres of culture, the family, politics, and science. His quick-hit, entertaining, and rousing chapters include "Late Night Thoughts on Equality, " "Baby Seals and Babies," "Mourning Marriage," and "Six Types of Freedom." Here's what the famous conservative thinker William F. Buckley Jr. said about Gairdner's The Trouble with Canada: "His mobilizing passion wonderfully animates an analytical precision that should be the reason for a national - binational - celebration."

CONTENTS
Preface	ix
I – Culture
Late Night Thoughts on Equality 3
Sticks and Stones	7
Dying for Values	11
Chomsky and Nativism	14
Anthropology and Ethics	18
Canada’s Slave Trade	24
Homeless? Or Family-less?	28
A Hero Gone	31
Can There Be Morality on the Moon?	35
II – Religion and the “Values” Problem
On Atheism	43
A Machine-gun Conversation	46
Opus Dei and “No Pain, No Gain”	48
Baby Seals and Babies	51
III – Sex, Women, and Family
Women and Money	57
Grieving Nicola	59
There Can Be No Sex in Homosexual	62
AIDS and Mortality Rates	65
Brain Sex	68
Women and Equality	73
Mourning Marriage	77
Restoring the Pro-family State	92
IV - Politics and Law
Six Types of Freedom	103
In Defence of Capital Punishment	109
An Elected Senate? Be Careful!	112
Despotism and the French Revolution	115
Swedish and Canadian Socialism	119
Socialism: The Ultimate Conservatism	123
Quebec a Nation? Never!	128
Choosing Your Belonging	132
Rae’s Rambling Rhetoric	136
From History to Harper to “Nation”	142
The Charter at Twenty-Five	154
The Ruse of Political Apologies	158
The Death of Cicero	161
The Natural Law in a Nutshell	165
V – Science
Biking on the Brain	171
Physics and Mystics	174
Global Warming in a Nutshell	178