who used the term state in modern sense for the first time
Machiavelli
title: State (polity) text: the most wealth and social rank, were those that held power.The word also had associations with Roman ideas (dating back to Cicero) about the ""status rei publicae"", the "condition of public matters". In time, the word lost its reference to particular social groups and became associated with the legal order of the entire society and the apparatus of its enforcement. The early 16th-century works of Machiavelli (especially "The Prince") played a central role in popularizing the use of the word "state" in something similar to its modern sense. The contrasting of church and state still dates to the 16th century. title: State (polity) text: "estado" in Spanish and Portuguese, "état" in French, "Staat" in German) ultimately derive from the Latin word "status", meaning "condition, circumstances". The English noun "state" in the generic sense "condition, circumstances" predates the political sense. It is introduced to Middle English c. 1200 both from Old French and directly from Latin. With the revival of the Roman law in 14th-century Europe, the term came to refer to the legal standing of persons (such as the various "estates of the realm" – noble, common, and clerical), and in particular the special status of the king. The highest estates, generally those with title: State formation text: religious authorities, free cities, and other authorities. Often dated to the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, there began to be the development in Europe of modern states with large-scale capacity for taxation, coercive control of their populations, and advanced bureaucracies. The state became prominent in Europe over the next few centuries before the particular form of the state spread to the rest of the world via the colonial and international pressures of the 19th century and 20th century. Other modern states developed in Africa and Asia prior to colonialism, but were largely displaced by colonial rule. Political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists title: Sovereignty text: During the Age of Enlightenment, the idea of sovereignty gained both legal and moral force as the main Western description of the meaning and power of a State. In particular, the "Social contract" as a mechanism for establishing sovereignty was suggested and, by 1800, widely accepted, especially in the new United States and France, though also in Great Britain to a lesser extent. Thomas Hobbes, in "Leviathan" (1651) arrived a conception of sovereignty similar to Bodin's, which had just achieved legal status in the "Peace of Westphalia", but for different reasons. He created the first modern version of the social title: State (polity) text: societies have been governed by states for millennia, however for most of pre-history people lived in stateless societies. The first states arose about 5,500 years ago in conjunction with rapid growth of cities, invention of writing, and codification of new forms of religion. Over time, a variety of different forms developed, employing a variety of justifications for their existence (such as divine right, the theory of the social contract, etc.). Today, however, the modern nation-state is the predominant form of state to which people are subject. The word "state" and its cognates in some other European languages ("stato" in Italian,