The grand historical perspective constitutes a critical analytical dimension for comprehensively understanding Xi Jinping’s cultural thought and for elucidating a series of foundational issues concerning the development and progression of human civilization. Rooted in the temporal and spatial continuum of both antiquity and modernity, as well as the dialectics of eastern and western civilizations, Xi Jinping’s cultural thought articulates a dual-structured framework of human civilization. It foregrounds the global civilization initiative in response to the historical context of unprecedented global transformations, emphasizes the pursuit of shared progress as a historical goal to refine evaluative criteria for civilizational advancement, expands the historical agency of civilizational creation to enhance inter-civilizational dialogue and mutual learning, and employs scientifically grounded historical laws to inform the construction of a novel form of human civilization. These dimensions collectively represent an innovative theoretical development of Marxist civilizational thought. From the vantage point of the grand historical perspective, examining Xi Jinping’s cultural thought across five fundamental dimensions—namely, the epistemological foundations (“how to understand”), strategic orientation (“how to position”), developmental objectives (“what is the goal”), driving forces (“who are the agents”), and guiding principles (“what provides direction”)—offers a systematic interpretive framework for its contributions to civilizational construction in the new era. In doing so, it reveals how this evolving and open-ended system of thought invigorates the Marxist conception of civilization and contributes Chinese intellectual resources and theoretical insights to the global discourse on the advancement of human civilization.