I've posted on here before about the sad quality of high-school textbooks, but it looks like college textbooks may be no better - at least where the definition of "terrorism" is concerned:
While all of the texts make a stab at defining terrorism, we quickly learn from the vast majority of them that terrorism lies largely in the eyes of the beholder. Almost all, in fact, trot out uncritically the cliche that one "person's" terrorist is another "person's" freedom fighter. One text makes this point four times in about eight pages devoted to the subject. Even a six-line description of the Terrorism Research Center's website contains a warning to students that in looking at "terrorist profiles and the Definition of Terrorism controversy, [k]eep in mind that one group's 'freedom fighters' may be another group's 'terrorists'" (Kegley and Wittkopf, p. 241). Four warnings in eight pages.
If students learn only one thing from most of these texts it is this: While no one really knows what terrorism is, whatever it is, we are one, as well.
There's more, so go read the whole thing.