This book is much more than a monograph about a scientific topic; it also provides a historical account of the growth of a new field of research by some of its pioneers. As such it is a case study of the long road from observations to phenomenological description culminating in true physical understanding typical for the geophysical sciences. It also illustrates the strong dependence on international collaboration, in this particular case the stimulus provided by the International Geophysical Year (IGY). This field of research grew out of ground-based whistler observations conducted during the IGY on the one hand and the first in situ measurements in the space environment surrounding the Earth made possible with the concurrent advent of the space age, on the other.