"Unlike the Ancients, the proponents of the Aryan Model were firm believers in ‘progress.’ Victors were seen as more advanced, and hence ‘better’, than the vanquished. Thus, despite apparent and short-term anomalies, history—now seen as the biographies of races—consisted of the triumphs of strong and vital peoples over weak and feeble ones. ‘Races’, formed by the landscape and climates of their homelands, retained permanent essences, even though they took on new forms in every new age. For these scholars, in addition, it was self-evident that the greatest ‘race’ in world history was the European or Aryan one. It alone had, and always would have, the capacity to conquer all other peoples and to create advanced, dynamic civilizations—as opposed to the static societies ruled by Asians or Africans."